


Four Penguins: Collision Course

by DavinaCFox



Category: Batman (1966), Batman (Comics), Batman (Movies 1989-1997), Gotham (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Androids, Chubby Oswald Cobblepot, Chubwald, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Gay Sex, Guns, Gunshot Wounds, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Lap Sex, M/M, Mpreg, Older female OC, Oral Sex, Slim Oswald Cobblepot, Some Humor, True Love, Vaginal Sex, scifi, shades of Terminator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-03-02 16:03:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18814279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DavinaCFox/pseuds/DavinaCFox
Summary: With a powerful machine that exposes four alternate realities put at risk, with the theft of the key that holds the worlds stable, in desperation to avert disaster, and all their operatives dead - the company who owns the reality splitter hires an old colleague, Debbie Flint for a simple mission:Travel to four alternate realities.Find out which Penguin has the stolen key and retrieve it.But... there's more than one problem with this task:After a failed marriage and raising three kids alone, Debbie hasn't worked a mission in twenty five years, and she's no longer the athletic young woman she used to be. She also doesn't know a rival company has sent out killer androids to hunt down the Penguins and claim the key. Now Debbie must explore four realities, save the Penguins and retrieve the key in time to save all five versions of reality.AU fic, four Penguins, four worlds - and only one of them holds the key to saving the universe...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again readers :D  
> Here is a Four Penguin fic featuring four versions of Penguin! I hope its a fun read, enjoy, Love Davina :-)

 

Chapter 1

 

Introduction:

 

“ _In the year 2050, an important scientific discovery was made with the invention of the Reality Splitter – a powerful machine that revealed there are four alternate universes. Each reality was explored and found to be similar to our own, with subtle differences. And with the machine in operation, those five realities were also vulnerable and exposed, with only the Salvation Key in place to stop the links to the realities from becoming unstable. Infinite Vision was the company that guarded the machine – but in 2075, the unthinkable happened and rival business Eternal Unlimited sent in a spy to steal the key._

_With the machine unstable and all five realities set on a collision course, the thief was located but taken down by force, with his dying breath saying only that the key was with The Penguin in Gotham City. With all five realities having a Gotham City and four of them having a high profile criminal named Penguin, the search would be a difficult task, and with time running out and most of their best operatives dead, Infinite Vision grew desperate to find an ex security operative capable of taking on the task of retrieving the key and preventing the destruction of all five realities. And they must have been truly desperate, because they asked for me, Deborah Flint...”_

 

As they stood in the empty boardroom of Infinite Vision, the two people who had once controlled the safety of the machine that opened up the reality pathways stood side by side, looking through a wide window into a white room where the machine stood, vast and dark with a large cube set in its centre as within its transparent shell, energy glowed like fireflies zipping about at a dizzying speed as the open slot at its heart glowed amber, the first warning sign that the stability of the realities were unstable due to the missing key.

“There must be someone left to send out there!” said Kerry Sparrow, one half of the partnership that made up Infinite Vision, as she stood there in a pale cream business suit with worry in her eyes, looking up at her taller, grey haired colleague, whose skill for coming up with solutions had for the first time failed him in a quarter of a century, shook his head.

“I don't know,” he replied, still looking towards the vast machine in the next room.

“All our security operatives skilled enough for this task are dead,” Kerry reminded him, “And we are running out of time. Think! You're Ellis Darby, the one who put our company together, surely you can think of someone?”

Then, he did. He turned to her as optimism sparked in his eyes.

“What about Debbie?”

“Debbie who?”

“Remember Debbie Flint, she used to be a top security operative... I can still recall how she handled that hostage situation in the city bank, I was there at the time, I witnessed it...”

He thought back, the memory replaying in slow motion:

_Debbie, twenty years old and tall and lean in black leather, leaping over a first floor balcony, landing with ease in her high heeled boots as she stood up, locked her weapon on to four suspects and hit them all with a multi targeted blast that shocked them senseless. As they fell, she lowered her weapon, standing there in a haze of smoke as she tossed her long blonde hair off her shoulder..._

Now Kerry remembered her.

“She was top level security, the best in her field! She worked for us for a short time...Yes, we must find her!” then she remembered something else...

“ _Wait...that was twenty-five years ago!”_

“There is no one else. All our other operatives were taken out by the tracking droids – they didn't even get as far as locating a single Penguin, in any of the other realities. Leave it to me, I'll locate her.” Then he left the room before Kerry could say another word.

 

Debbie Flint had not been in the business of security and protection for years, but she still lived dangerously - if living dangerously meant bending far over to water the plants in the front garden and risk her back pain flaring up, which it almost did as she heard her phone ring and straightened up too fast, then she put a hand on her lower back and cautiously stretched it, then took out her phone and answered the call.

“Debbie Flint?” said a voice that seemed familiar.

“Yes, who wants to know?” she asked.

“This is Mr Darby of Infinite Vision. I realise you've been out of action for a while but we have decided to choose you for a very important mission. We will pay you very well too. It's a few days out in the field. And it _is_ urgent.”

The thought of a large payment made her smile. These days she worked part time as a bounty hunter, mainly pulling in small scale criminals. Most of the time she got paid very little for her hours but rarely got the bonus paid by the company, because catching people involved running, and she was the first to admit after three kids, she was a little out of shape... maybe more than a little. But this was Infinite Vision... _Why did they want her, after all these years?_

“Can you do it?” he asked.

She thought about the money. Right now, it was desperately needed.

“I'm on my way over,” she replied, then she ended the call and went back inside the house, negotiated around the general mess and clutter left around the place by her three teenage kids and went upstairs.

Thoughts of the old days flooded her mind as she opened up a wardrobe and reached into the back of it, pulling out her old leathers.

Five minutes later,realising her zip up top wouldn't zip because it wouldn't meet by at least three inches, she had tossed it aside and put on a stretchy white vest, good old stretch fabric, her best friend for many years that didn't care about the pounds she had piled on since having three kids then raising them alone after her unfaithful partner had left her for another woman. She clearly wasn't the slender person she used to be, trying to get back into her leathers was impossible, even lying down she couldn't pull them up past her hips, so she took them off and grabbed her black jeans, then holstered her gun and threw on her black biker's jacket. She used to be a size 6, she was now a 14. Her fair hair hung in bob that fell past her jaw, and there was a couple of silver strands visible. She put on mascara and clear lip gloss and guessed the glamorous young woman who used to work for Infinite Vision was long gone... She glanced at her old boots, the heels were six inches high. _Fuck that, not with my back,_ she thought, and instead put on heavy biker boots. Then she looked into the mirror again and gave a sigh.

“I do hope they won't be disappointed...” she muttered, and then she turned to leave, and suddenly remembered the kids. She would be gone for days...

“Travis,” she called out as she left the bedroom, “I need you to take care of things around here, I'm working and I'll be away for a few days -”

She stopped right there, looking into her son's room. There was huge pile of dirty laundry left on the floor in the corner, almost reaching the window.

“Why do you kids turn this house into a shit hole? I told you to do the laundry while I was working my shift!”

Her son looked up from his phone as he sat on his bed.

“Yeah, later, Mom...”

“No, do it now!”

“Ask someone else, I'm busy.”

She gave a sigh of frustration. Three kids, twin sons aged nineteen, Travis and Tony, one looked like his dad and the other was more like her, but neither did anything around the house except make a mess. Seventeen year old daughter Lacey was serious about her studies, but also did nothing around the house except leave the bathroom in a mess.

“I'm going away, did you hear what I said?”

Travis nodded.

“Okay, see you when you get back.”

Tony had just heard them talking and looked into the room.

“Where are you going, Mom?”

“I have a job to do for Infinite Vision. I could be gone for several days. I want the house cleaned up while I'm way – and get the laundry done. I want to come back to a tidy home, this could be a difficult job. But they're paying me well and we need the money. Keep an eye on your sister too.”

They both nodded.

“Don't worry, we'll take care of everything,” Tony assured her, then he gave her a hug.

“Stay safe.”

“I will,” she assured him, then as she left the room, the two boys exchanged a look of glee.

“Mom's gone for days,” whispered Travis, “Let's have a party!”

Tony smiled as he nodded.

“Good plan. And we'd better include Sis, or she'll tell on us.”

 

Debbie wasted no time hurrying to the car, getting in and starting the engine. She had recently reminded the boys her car had needed washing, then she had reminded Lacey the garden needed a tidy. Nothing had been done. Then it occurred to her she hadn't told the boys not to have friends over while she was away. But there was no time to remind them, because she was on her way to earn a big fee that would take care of a lot of bills...

She drove across town to the vast, shining building, the head quarters of Infinite Vision. The place hadn't changed in twenty five years, that was her thought on parking up and getting out of the car. She looked up at the tall structure and got a blast of nostalgia – yes, this place certainly hadn't changed... but she had... She brushed off those concerns. They needed her, they had asked for her. Now she was here...

She entered the building and went up to the main reception, and was then escorted by an armed guard to the top floor. As the doors opened into a corridor she had not seen for many years, she felt it again, that sense of the old days coming back to her. The guard led her up to the board room, then opened up the door and waited outside as she walked in.

“Hey guys, I'm back!” she announced, strolling up to two faces she recognised – Ellis and Kerry. They looked older than when she last saw them, but time had been good to them.

Kerry stared at her... Wow, Debbie Flint was _nothing_ like she used to be. She was stocky and heavier and didn't look anything like the lean and toned young woman who had been a top security operative back in the day...

“I'm so glad you could make it,” said Ellis, shaking her hand warmly, “This is a desperate situation and you are ideal for the job.”

“ _No she's not...”_ muttered Kerry, but it was too late, Ellis was leading her through to another room to explain her task. She followed them in, turned on the screen and then sat down, watching in silent disbelief as she wondered if her business partner had gone crazy. Debbie wasn't in shape. She had been away for years. She wasn't up to this task...

 

They talked. Debbie explained she had been out of action for a while, got married, had three kids, then worked part time as a bounty hunter. Neither Ellis nor Kerry asked for any work references. Ellis was too keen to get on and explain the mission.

He told her about the theft of the key and what this meant for the stability of the realities. Debbie said nothing, feeling cold at the thought that while the instability was being felt as minor earth tremors in the other realities, it was yet to hit this one. She thought about her kids. She worried for their future. Then Ellis activated the screen and she saw four separate Gotham Cities, all similar, but all in different realities. Then the faces of four criminals named Penguin, one was deathly pale and short and round with bird like features and flippers for hands. Another was slender and youthful and well dressed and definitely handsome. The third was older, slightly heavy, and had a pointed nose and smoked a cigarette from a long holder. The fourth was a well dressed, heavy man with cold blue eyes who seemed to reside in a Gotham cast in more shadow than the others. She was given a brief history of each – one Penguin would die in toxic water after a battle with a vigilante named Batman, another would live out his days alone while he pined for another criminal who went by the name of Edward Nygma, and lose his empire after ten long years in prison following a war in the city. The other two would rule their Gotham cities as master criminals all of their lives, and live to be old men. She knew the lives and fates of all of them. The destinations and times to arrive had been set. All she had to do was locate each Penguin. One of these men had the key...

“This is all I have to do?” Debbie asked as they finished the briefing and she was led from the room and down the corridor, “I just have to go to each reality, work out which one has they key and retrieve it and come back?”

They had reached a locked door that was opened by an armed guard.

“Yes,” Ellis replied, “An easy task.”

“No it isn't!” Kerry exclaimed.

Ellis turned quickly to Debbie.

“That gun you're carrying isn't enough. You'll find everything you need inside.”

Debbie entered the room, saw the vast array of weaponry and her eyes lit up. This was the kind of kit she dreamed about in the old days...

“She's not up to this!” Kerry warned him in a low voice.

“I remember how good she used to be. I have faith in her!” Ellis replied, then he joined Debbie in the next room.

“What can I take?” she asked.

“I recommend two rechargeable multi target locking pistols,” he replied, “And take a solar powered blaster gun, it can pinpoint a single target or multiple.”

She had already cast aside her old gun and holstered the pistols, then as she lifted the long, cylinder shaped weapon she looked at it in wonder.

“I always wanted one of these!”

“Well, you've got one now!” he said, smiling warmly.

Debbie put the strap over her shoulder and angled the blaster at her side, then Kerry stepped in.

“You should also take these,” she told her, handing her a belt with small silver cannisters attached, “You probably won't need them, but better safe than sorry.”

Debbie thought back to the old days. She knew how to cross realities, she had never done it, but she had been given the training and Ellis said, the same rules applied. It worked by a device that looked like a watch. She could still remember how to use it. But as she strapped on the belt below the holstered pistols, she frowned... the cannisters were Eclipse gas...She knew there was only one use for that.

“Why do I have to carry Eclipse? I thought that was only used in defence against semi organic tracker droids, programmed hunter machines... it blocks the chest unit and kills them,” her eyes widened in alarm, “How dangerous is this mission, I have kids -”

“It's safe enough, you'll be in and out... a process of elimination, find the key and return,”Ellis told her.

“And there had better not be any running. I'm not twenty years old any more!”

“No running,” he assured her.

Kerry glared at him, then looked to Debbie.

“There's a strong risk that our rivals might have sent in -”

“No time for that, Debbie knows all the details, “ Ellis replied quickly, “Now, are you ready to go?”

“I think so,” Debbie replied, her mind on the money as she tried not to think too much about that gas weapon.

As they went down the long white corridor toward the door at the end of it, she was handed two watches. She looked at the dial and smiled.

“I remember the drill, there are five sections on the face, each one is a different reality. Ours is colour coded red, the others are numbered...” she strapped the device to her wrist then looked at the other device in her hand.

“Why do I have two?”

“In case you lose the first one,” he replied, then they entered a room where past a control panel, a square platform glowed deep red.

“Good luck,” said Ellis.

“Thanks,” Debbie replied.

She stood on the platform and the red light covered her as she looked towards the operative on the controls, then to the people who had hired her.

“I'm ready,” she said.

“Be careful,” Kerry replied in a tight whisper.

The light glowed brighter as Debbie turned the dial to Zone One. There was a blur and a crackle, and then she was gone.

“There she goes, our only hope to save the world!” said Ellis with a big smile on his face.

Kerry looked at him in horror... _Debbie was their only hope?_

“If our only hope is a middle aged, out of shape part time bounty hunter, we are fucked!”

“Have faith,” he replied, then left the room, as she stood there, her eyes wide with disbelief, then she walked out too, silently wondering about the sanity of her business partner. _Debbie wasn't just out of shape, she hadn't worked a mission for a quarter of a century..._

 

**ZONE ONE : Batman Returns Universe**

The air around her felt hot, then cold, icy cold as the blur faded out. As she blinked and took in a breath, she saw it was dark and a layer of snow covered the ground. She began to head quickly out of the shadows and along a busy street where late night shoppers were hurrying in and out of stores where displays were decorated with seasonal cheer. _It was Christmas time?_ Her guns were hidden by her jacket, so were the cannisters. She was glad she had chosen warm clothing, but that jacket wasn't warm enough as she shivered. No one seemed to notice the gunmetal shade cylinder she carried on the shoulder strap – here it didn't look like an obvious weapon, so she attracted no stares or reactions from people who passed her by. Then she saw a guy selling newspapers, and as he called out the headline, she knew for sure where she had arrived:

“ _Creature seen in Gotham sewers! Penguin man spotted!”_ he announced as people stopped, giving pause to buy the copies of a newspaper that carried such a shocking headline.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the seller, then she shook her head: _What kind of a city was this, to call a man with birth defects a creature?_ Those who had stopped to buy the newspaper seemed so excited and intrigued and it made her feel a slow, rising anger. She had been briefed on the background of each Penguin and she knew the man who lived in the old Gotham Zoo had a tragic beginning in life – dumped by wealthy parents who refused to accept his disabilities, thrown away like trash to float off down an icy river, ending up in the sewer system, then the water had carried him to the old Arctic World at the zoo, where he had lived all his life, surrounded by animals, apart from his brief time with a travelling circus who exhibited him as a freak, a bird-boy... No wonder he was so bitter at the world above ground. She didn't blame him at all...He had not one shred of happiness in his short and miserable life, living out his days as a freak below ground, then dying when clashed with Batman, poisoned by toxic water. And she had to find a way into that underground tunnel system and locate him...

 

As she made her way out of the busy street, she saw an old, exposed tunnel. It may not be the way in to find the Penguin man, but at least there was no snow in there... she shivered as she entered the tunnel, as she went deeper she felt thankful this part of the sewer system was no longer used and thankfully dry, as it was bad enough being cold, but up to her knees in shit would have been _much_ worse. Light came in from the gaps above where through small, barred drainage areas she saw the light from street lamps, sending in an eerie glow. Then up ahead something small and rounded carrying an umbrella waddled quickly out of sight. The shadow had hit the wall for a moment and then it was gone... _Was this him? Had she found him already?_

“ _Wait!”_ she called, and then she groaned. This would mean running.

Debbie made her way up the tunnel walking quickly, turning the corner sharply only to find another tunnel, and here it was dark. She paused for breath, sights set on the pitch dark in the distance.

“What choice do I have!” she exclaimed, and begun to make her way towards the darkness.

She got halfway down the tunnel when she heard a noise, a sound of quick, shuffling movements in the dark beyond her line of vision. Debbie stopped, catching sight of that same short, rounded figure as it darted back into the shadows.

“Wait!” she called as her voice echoed about the tunnel, “Mr Penguin? I'm here to help -”

The floor gave way as a trap door opened, and she fell through with a rush of cold air, landing with a thump on the snow covered ground of the floor below. Thankfully it was a soft landing, due to snow that had drifted in from the slope above, where in the distance she saw an old rusted sign that said Arctic World. She got up cautiously, pausing to put a hand on her back, checking for signs that pain might have been set off by the fall. She had been lucky this time... Then she looked around, seeing the bizarre sight of a circus troupe in old faded clothing sitting on one side of the area at a table, where it seemed they had been sharing a meal. They were all staring at her.

“Hi!” she said with a hint of anger in her voice, “Who just dropped me through a trap door? I haven't come all this way to play stupid games. I need to find The Penguin!”

“And you have found him!” said a gruff voice.

She turned sharply to see him waddling towards her, he was short and round and had shiny black gloves covering his flipper hands. His face was pale and his nose long and sharp as a beak and his small, dark beady eyes regarded her suspiciously as he joined her, then stood there, wrapped in a warm coat as his hair cascaded over the fur lapels. Some black goo ran from his lip and he spit it into the snow. Seeing that made her feel a little more forgiving towards him for the use of the trap door – he was mildly poisoned by the pool of toxic waste. Not long from now, full immersion in it would take his life...

Penguin stood there, fixing his bird like gaze on her.

“I'm waiting for a reaction! I am the Gotham freak, the sewer creature!”

“And?” she asked, “What response would you like to get?”

He threw his arms wide and opened up his flippers

“How about _Aargh!_ ” he yelled, as the cry echoed about the cavernous area and in the distance, the penguins watched as their human leader spoke to the stranger.

Debbie gave a sigh.

“You're expecting fear?”

He blinked.

“Of course I am!”

“I refuse to treat you that way. You were born into a family would could have given you a great life – had they not rejected you so cruelly. And anyone who calls a person with birth defects a monster, creature or freak is plain spiteful! You're none of those things, Penguin... You're a man, a human being. And there's nothing wrong with being different.”

His stared at her. He was suddenly silent as he turned over all she had said. This stranger had turned up in his underground world and did not fear him, did not stare and refused to accept he was a freak...It echoed his hopes for the world above, that some day they should see him in this light also...

He waddled closer to her, pausing to grab a piece of fish that lay in the snow, he ripped it in half and took a bite, then chewed as he asked a question.

“How do you know so much about me, Miss...?”

“Flint, Debbie Flint. I was sent here by a company called Infinite Vision. There are five realities and one machine has uncovered their pathways. But its held in place by a special key. Without it, all the universes could collapse. All we know is the Penguin has the key. Three other versions of Gotham have a Penguin too. Do you have this key I'm seeking?”

“No,” he stated, “I have bigger plans than stealing a key! Some day soon I shall ascend into the world above!”

“And that's not a good idea,” she replied, “I know the history and outcome of the lives of all the Penguins. Your plan to take over Gotham will ultimately kill you.”

Anger flashed in his eyes.

“I have no proof of any of your claims, Debbie!”

He waddled over to a metal container where umbrella handles stuck out, and picked one at random, opened it up and then lowered it, turning it in a hypnotic spiral.

“Tell me why you really came here! Who sent you?” he demanded.

She looked up from the swirling spiral on the umbrella.

“If that's supposed to hypnotise me, it's not working.”

The tip of the umbrella went off with a sharp bang. She flinched, then shook her head.

“Firecrackers won't make me talk either. I already told you why I'm here!”

He closed the umbrella and shoved back into the container in frustration, then waddled closer, raised the fish to his mouth and took a bite.

“Maybe you made up the story about the key just to seek out the Penguin man?”

She looked at him in confusion as she gave a small shake of her head.

“Nope.”

He tossed the half eaten fish back into the snow and then wiped his mouth with the back of his gloved flipper hand and then he looked her up and down, then his beady eyes began to gleam as he smiled broadly.

“I think I've figured it out,” he said in a low voice as he leaned closer, his long nose a fraction from her face as he spoke softly and hopefully, “You heard the tale of the mysterious Penguin man and decided to find him...” He raised a gloved flipper smeared with raw fish and swept it towards her as he spoke with the air of a storyteller, “You decided to seek him him out to fulfil your wish: _Hello, Mr Penguin man, we meet at last. You have a nice parasol collection, Mr Penguin. Can we talk alone, Mr Penguin? I never knew a flipper could be used like that, Mr Penguin..._ ”

There was a hopeful smile on his face and a gleam in his eyes as he looked at her and she looked back at him in dismay.

“You moron!” she exclaimed, “I'm here to retrieve the key!”

His lips briefly curved into a snarl.

“There is no key! You may as well tell me the truth, Debbie! If you lie to me again I'll put you in the cage!”

As he gestured to a cage that hung above sickly coloured water, she gave a sigh as she shook her head.

“And you'll kill yourself and everyone around you if that key doesn't go back with me. There's been earth tremors recently, yes?”

He thought about it.

“Well, yes, a few what of it?”

“It's a sign the realities are losing cohesion. I don't have much time and if you have the key I need to take it back. It's of no use to you!”

“I have no key!” he insisted.

“And how do I prove that?” she demanded.

He smirked.

“Search this place from top to bottom. Make my people strip. Search me too. Depending on the size of the key, you _might_ need gloves for that!” he gave her a wink.

“Oh god, no!” she exclaimed, shaking her head, “They said this would be easy, _why_ are you being so difficult! Don't you know the universe is at stake? If one reality collapses, so do the rest!” she paused to turn away, bending over as her back ached to retrieve her blaster weapon, as Penguin's eyes grew wide at the sight of her ample curves and the way her jeans hugged her butt. She turned back to face him.

“I'm serious, Penguin! If I can't find the key, if the lines between the realities collapse, my world is gone, so is yours, all worlds are gone, there will be _nothing_ left, just a void!”

He smiled as his eyes shone hopefully.

“ _I could fill your void!”_

“Oh this is hopeless! _Why_ don't you believe my story?” she demanded.

“This is the only Gotham City,” he replied.

“No, it isn't!” she said angrily.

Then Penguin looked up, a flicker of alarm in his eyes as the frightened penguins nosily began to gather and then waddled away from their underground home, looking left and right nervously. She saw it first, a flicker of neon blue as two shadows loomed close to the top of the slope, followed by a third. She knew that glow. _Oh shit, they had lied... She was being hunted by tracker droids? They were almost indestructible..._

She lunged forward, grabbing Penguin by the arms of his thick coat.

“ _Get your people out, they are coming and you don't have the weapons to stop them!”_

“Who are coming?” he asked.

“ _Them!”_ she yelled, looking up as the silver men with their eyes glowing white in the darkness looked down into the enclosure, then their bodies twisted and altered as weapons appeared in their hands and they took aim, the first shot blew out a chunk of ice and rock and it showered down and their red laser lights homed in on Penguin and Debbie. As the second shot was fired, Debbie lunged at Penguin, pushing him to the ground as the shot stabbed deep in her shoulder and she gave a yell. Penguin rolled down a short slope and she rolled with him, they came to a sharp stop at the water's edge and she got up, ducked more shots and as he grabbed at her wounded shoulder she yelled again as he hauled himself to his feet.

“This way!” he said as his people scattered and ran for cover, taking every available exit to get away from the onslaught. Ice and rock were showering down, now three of them were making their way down the slope, their liquid metal bodies twisting as they reformed, taking low and high aims, working on bringing down the ceiling to trap their prey.

Penguin pushed back the wing of a giant yellow duck that looked like it might have been stolen from a fairground ride.

“This our only means of escape?” she yelled above the sound of exploding ice and rock, “Seriously, a _duck?_ ”

“Get in!” he shouted back, and gave her a shove into the duck as he followed. As Debbie ducked another shot, Penguin's head was low as another missed by a fraction and he took the duck across the water and then up a steep flight of steps. Every bump was a sharp jolt as they kept their heads down and then there was a blast that shook the duck as the wing-door took damage.

They made it to the top and drove fast down an old sewer tunnel, as shorts rang out in the distance behind them. Debbie reached around to the back of her shoulder, holding her hand against a wound as blood flowed freely.

“Oh no - those bastards have shot me with a tracing device! It was meant for you! Now I know what their game is – mark the Penguin, track him, take him out and retrieve the key....”

They took a sharp corner at speed and her shoulder throbbed as more blood flowed, leaving a spatter on the wall of the tunnel.

“We have to stop, we have to take them out, or at least try to, if we stop them, they will send more but they will follow me not you...we need to lead them into the tunnel system as far as we can go.”

She took her hand off the wound and wiped it on her jeans. More warm blood trickled down her back, that tracker had gone deep and she needed to cut it out, or they would _never_ stop following her... The duck took another sharp turn and the pain in her shoulder made her guts lurch with it. As they came to a stop, there was nothing to be heard in the distance but the sound of a trickle of water. Penguin got out first, Debbie staggered after him, pausing to lean on the battered, scorched wing-door.

“I am too old for this shit!” she exclaimed, “They said it was safe, they said there was no danger. If I have to start running, I'm going to cry!”

Penguin had turned towards the sound of the water. Debbie turned too.

_Not water._

Tiny rivers of silver, tripping along like balls of mercury, coming together at a distance, taking on human form as they rose from the ground...

Debbie raised the blaster, switching it on as a sharp electronic whine filled the tunnel.

“I'm going to try and hit them with a shock, then I can deploy the gas.”

Penguin took a step back, his small eyes wide as his flipper hands clenched tightly, looking towards the robots as he wondered how the hell such a thing could exist. They were clearly _not_ of this world...

Debbie raised the blaster, locking on to the three droids. Her shoulder was throbbing. She was thinking about Infinite Vision and how she had been lied to, and she was thinking about her kids back home, she wanted to live to see them again. She hit the button.

_Nothing happened._

The blaster was jammed, and the droids were advancing, twisting their silver shapes as they raised their weapons, setting laser sights on her and Penguin as she pushed the button again, and still the damned thing didn't work...

“Do something!” Penguin said as he began to slowly back off, hoping to lose their laser sight in the shadows.

“ _I'm trying!”_

Debbie struggled with the gun as her shoulder throbbed.

“It's not working!” she yelled in panic, pressing the button again.

“What does that mean for us?” Penguin demanded.

Still the droids advanced. She tried again.

Nothing...

“ _It means we're as good as dead...”_ she told him.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 

Penguin was up against the wall at the turn in the tunnel, having no intention of making a fast waddle out of there because clearly, Debbie had the only weapons capable of fighting off those metal _things_ that had reformed into human shapes. Every umbrella was back in his Arctic World hideout, his people had scattered and she was the only one left to help. And her weapon was jammed...

“ _Do something!”_ he yelled.

She shook the blaster, then ducked a shot as a chunk of concrete shattered close by. The pain in her shoulder was screaming as that tracking device buried deep and hot in her flesh. More shots rained out, shooting past glowing sharp like tiny fireballs, making concrete burst into shards on impact as Penguin ducked and literally rolled around the corner out of the line of fire. Debbie backed up, making for the turn in the tunnel, ducking more blasts.

“Oh no!” she exclaimed, “How could I forget this?”

Then she reached below the trigger, flipping a switch she had forgotten about, as it restarted with an electrical whine as the core glowed orange. A screen flashed up and she ran her finger over it, selecting the three droids as they fired again and she fell to her knees as she felt the heat of shots rain overhead. She raised the weapon, looking into the line of fire and pulled the trigger. Three streaks of tangerine shaded lightning shot from the blaster, wrapping around each figure and forming a glowing mesh. Debbie ducked low, the figures exploded in a shower of sliver liquid that spattered floor to ceiling. She was on her hands and knees as she looked up to see the mess... Already little rivers of silver were running down the walls and dripping to the floor to meet in three pools of liquid. In the middle of each pool was a small pulsating mass. The organic part of the structure, the part the Eclipse gas could destroy... take that out, and those things were no more than a worthless puddle of slime...She was up on her knees aching from the impact of the dive to the ground as she unclipped a cannister from her belt. She got up and paused to take a breath, this was the fastest she had moved for years and her muscles ached already – and more of these things would be coming, and that tracking device in her shoulder was burning like a hot coal... She twisted the cannister, heard a hiss and pitched it into the pool, watching as a haze of gas rose and then flattened out and began to sink, making the pulse in the middle of each pool bubble, then split.

Debbie stepped back, turned to the tunnel and began to head into the darkness. As the tunnel turned at the corner, there was light coming from the other end of it. Penguin was waiting there just around the corner, looking paler than before and shaken as his small dark eyes widened.

“Why did those things come for me?” he demanded.

“I told you before – there are four realities with a Gotham city and a man known as Penguin. One Penguin has the key...” she paused, connecting the dots in her mind as she realised the truth of the matter.

“I think Infinite Vision hired me to fail! Kerry told me to take the canisters, Darby wasn't going to mention them. She knew about the droids and he rushed me along to get on with this mission! If he's sold out the company to Eternal Unlimited, if they get hold of the Salvation Key, we're all in danger! Access to other worlds can easily be manipulated and used for dangerous purposes... access to timelines, too...That's what it is! They don't want access to the alternate worlds, but the means to time travel. I know I'm right about this.”

Penguin stared at her. Until now, his most ambitious plan had been to ascend to the world above and become accepted, and hopefully rule the people of Gotham. But other worlds and dimensions... this was bigger than anything he had ever dreamed possible...

“Do you think in one of these other versions of Gotham, they might be in desperate need of a leader like me?”

He smiled hopefully. Debbie politely returned his smile.

“No,” she said, “No one wants a leader who...”

He was looking at her intently, head tilted, blinking, waiting.

“Who, _what?_ ” he demanded, then he wiped a small trail of black goo from his lip and carried on looking hard at her.

She looked back at him and shrugged.

“You smell like fish,” she replied honestly.

His face briefly contorted into a snarl, then he looked towards the end of the tunnel where daylight beckoned.

“We have to go back.”

She paused for thought, considered those cruel newspaper headlines about the monster beneath the city, and didn't need a reason to persuade him other wise.

“Good idea,” she agreed, then he waddled and she walked stiffly, as they headed back the way they came, where at the end of the tunnel the duck was still sanding in one piece, with a sightly damaged door where a shot had glanced it and cut a gouge through half its thickness.

 

The ride back into Arctic world was certainly calmer but every bump down that stairway send shooting pain through Debbie's shoulder. The vehicle hit the water softly and crossed it to the other side, then Penguin got out first and she followed and for a moment he stood there, observing the gouged out chunks of ice and rock, the droids had done their damage and perhaps his people would be gone for days, but at least there were no corpses lying around. The penguins had not returned yet, the whole place was silent.

“It's a mess, but it's not destroyed,” Penguin said, “We survived!”

He smiled broadly as his dark eyes twinkled with victory.

“More of them will come,” she told him, and his smile vanished.

“And you will destroy them!” he insisted.

“I don't have enough Eclipse to dissolve their power source, not indefinitely,” she replied, “We have a at least a day before they pick up the signal in the root dimension.”

Confusion filled his gaze.

“My reality,” she explained, “They won't send more for at least twenty-four hours.”

“And then what?” Penguin asked.

Debbie didn't have the answer to that question. She had three other realities to explore, three more Penguins to find and they would all be in danger and those droids would track them all down on a shoot to kill order...She didn't have enough cannisters to take out all of the droids...

“We have time to think of a plan,” she replied.

Penguin waddled to the edge of the water, looking about the cavernous space.

“It has just occurred to me that other worlds also have a version of me?”

He turned from the water, looking at her with a questioning gaze.

“They have a Penguin,” she replied, “none of them are like you, they are all different.”

He raised a gloved flipper and in that moment, sadness reflected in his face as he opened and closed it.

“They are not men created as I was,” he said, “They live above ground, they are not freaks.”

Debbie walked over to the waters edge and joined him.

“Where I come from,” she said, “We also have a Gotham City, but we don't have a Penguin. If we did, and he looked like you, we certainly wouldn't stand for people running cruel headlines in newspapers calling him a freak. Where I come from, no one would stare at you. We are a decent and respectful society...” she paused for thought, “Although you wouldn't think so in my house – I have teenage kids, they're always making the place look like a dump – but apart from that, I have nothing to complain about...”

She paused again, looking into his dark eyes that had taken on a softness as he looked back at her. In that moment she saw beyond his outward appearance, as in his eyes reflected a lonely soul, outcast all his life, desperate to find a place where he truly belonged. _And he wasn't going to find it. He was destined to die..._ A look of confusion came to his face as she reached down and brushed a small shard of concrete from his hair. There was a cut to his cheek and it shone in the dim lighting of the cavern.

“You're bleeding,” she said, “We should both get cleaned up.”

That hopeful look was back on his face.

“Together?” he said in a gruff, optimistic voice.

She looked down at him, he was several inches shorter than her, and very round and broad and in that moment, she wanted to hug him. The guy just didn't give up.

“You don't get out much, do you?” she said.

“I never leave my underground world!” he announced with pride, “But my people see me as their king!”

As he spoke, he waddled off towards stairway that led up a level. She followed, as he carried on talking.

“I am The Penguin,” he said proudly, “And this is my world and as my guest, I intend to make you most welcome!”

They had reached the top of the stairway. He grandly threw open a door to a large, sparse room with one double bed and a few items of furniture. The window was partly boarded up but light shone in as night ended and early dawn broke through. She saw a doorway partly open, and beyond it was a very basic bathroom with a shower unit.

“I'm so relieved you have a bathroom!” she exclaimed, then she walked stiffly over to the bed and sat down as a bird in a cage close by fluttered from its perch tweeting sweetly as more light crept into the room through the boarded window. Penguin closed the door behind him, standing there with small beady eyes gleaming excitedly.

“Thank you for the loan of this room,” she said, and pain registered on her face as she took off her leather jacket, pausing to inspect the hole burned through the back of it by the shot that had hit her.

“Those bastards wrecked my best jacket!”

Penguin waddled quickly over to her, pausing to remove his gloves. He shoved them into his pocket, then a flipper hand snatched her coat.

“When my people return, I shall have this repaired for you,” he said with a smile, and then opened up a wardrobe, took out a hanger and carefully hung it up. Then he turned back to her, his soft, pale flippers opening and closing nervously.

“What _else_ may I assist you with? Perhaps your vest?”

She kicked off her boots and stared at him.

“You think I'm stripping for you?”

He froze awkwardly for a moment.

“This is my bedroom...” he waddled over to the other side of the bed, then sat down, “A room we are forced to share as it is the _only_ bedroom...” he laid down with a thump and rolled, his eyes on the curve of her hips as she sat there. Debbie got up, stepping back from the bed, looking at the small, round man still on his side who looked hopefully up at her with a big smile on his face.

“You can certainly handle a fight,” he said in admiration, “A king like me needs a capable queen! We would make such a great team, Debbie! What's your thoughts on that generous offer?”

“I've never known anyone so sexually frustrated!” she exclaimed, then she went into the bathroom, closed the door and locked it.

Penguin rolled into the middle of the bed, giving a heavy sigh. He slid his flipper down to the hardness in his pants and then drew it away again as need and a lifetime of loneliness wrapped up together and made his heart ache.

“ _Please return my affection,”_ he whispered as he heard the water running, _“I just want to know what it feels like to be loved...even if we only do it once!”_

 

In the bathroom, the water turned a shade of red as the shower washed away the grime and the blood flowed from her shoulder. Debbie got out of the shower, grabbed a towel and dried herself, then she cautiously felt around the back of her shoulder, the wound was too painful to touch and the pain was making her feel weak. So much for this being an easy job... _How the hell was she supposed to move on from here and find the other three guys, let alone locate the key?_ She was wounded, not only that, but wounded with a tracking device...When the droids returned for another attack, they would be following the signal in her shoulder...She was signing Penguin's death warrant simply by staying around. When the Eclipse gas was exhausted, it would take a lot of fire power to take out those droids, more than she could handle alone...

“ _Why did I take this job?”_ she whispered, still aching despite the heat of the shower.

She opened up a cabinet on the wall and found a few first aid items – but not nearly enough to fix her shoulder. She needed the tracker dug out with a scalpel, a sterile scalpel. _Nothing_ was sterile around here, the tiles were cracked and aged and damp was creeping across the ceiling. She wrapped the towel around herself and grabbed the first aid items then left the bathroom.

 

Penguin was standing next to the bed, and as she looked at him, he looked at her and his eyes widened as his broad smile got even bigger.

“No,” she said, and he looked down at the floor, then waddled off quickly to take his turn in the shower. He closed the door, but didn't lock it. Despite the pain her shoulder, she smiled as she shook her head. He was _still_ hoping...

But her shoulder was still throbbing and it was impossible to dress the wound, because she couldn't reach around far enough. She knew she would have to ask Penguin to do it. She gave a weary sigh as she sat there, waiting for him to leave the bathroom.

 

Finally, after almost an hour, he emerged wrapped in a big, fluffy bathrobe. He had washed and dried his hair. He had none of the black goo sticking to his teeth as he smiled and then his flippers opened and closed, twitching nervously.

“Well, it seems my fortune has turned around!” he declared, waddling keenly over to her, “Here you are, waiting for me!”

“I need you to clean up my wound,” she said, “I can't reach it.”

“Of course, and then perhaps -”

“And then I'm going to grab some sleep!” she said sharply. He flinched at her tone of voice, almost shying away as he drew his flippers a little closer to his rounded body.

A crazy thought hit her, and suddenly it didn't seem so crazy as she looked at him, small and round and hunched with his flippers and bird-like features :

_Did I just hurt his feelings?_

“Are you sure you can cope with doing this, with your... hands?” she added cautiously.

“There's nothing my hands can't do!” he said, and she looked away, hiding a smile. He _still_ refused to give up...

“Be careful,” she told him, turning away as he waddled over to her side of the bed and sat down.

“Want me to try and take that thing out of your shoulder?”

“Can you see it?” she asked.

He placed a flipper on her shoulder, leaning closer to look at the wound.

“No,” he replied, “There's just a small hole. But if I can find a knife I can dig it out -”

“No!” she said in horror, “It's a tracking device, it has a barb that hooks into the tissue once a target has been hit. It needs to be cut out carefully, with a sterile scalpel - which I'm pretty sure you don't have.”

“At least I can clean you up,” he reminded her.

As the antiseptic connected with her skin she gave a hiss of pain as it burned deep. He patted her shoulder, and his touch was warm and soft.

“Almost done,” he said, and she was surprised at his gentleness as he finished off the dressing, then he gathered up the first aid items and took them back to the bathroom.

Lying down was difficult, the wound was deep and even lying on her uninjured side did little to stop the pain in her shoulder that settled to a dull ache. She guessed when she woke up, she would ache all over from the battle with the droids and that wound wouldn't be feeling any better, too... But she had to rest before she moved on, and strangely, as Penguin waddled back towards the bed, she didn't feel at at all unconformable around him. She never had, he was crude to point that she could laugh, but then there reached a point where she couldn't laugh, because she saw such loneliness in his eyes. It had occurred to her that he had probably never known love or closeness with anyone. Going by the reactions of those above ground to the newspaper headlines, up there, he would be seen as a freak. Below ground, his circus troupe people seemed to look up to him as a leader – but saw him as no more than that. And his awkwardness around her as he rolled on to the bed, turned to face her then quickly dipped his face downward, avoiding her gaze like a bird tucking its head under its wing, made her draw the conclusion that perhaps, he had been deprived of all kinds of love in his lonely life, it would explain a lot... The bed creaked and the dip in the mattress settled beneath his weight.

“Sleep well,” he said quietly.

For one who had seemed so bold on their first meeting, he sounded suddenly shy. As they lay in the warm light of the rising sun as it filtered into the room, she shivered.

“It's cold in here.”

He reached for the covers, pulling them up, gently covering her up to her shoulders as he snuggled down, small and round and curled up, seemingly comfortable despite the chill of the place.

“I could warm you up,” he said, “Just warm you up, nothing else...”

Her shoulder was hurting deeply. The cold was making it worse. She shifted closer to Penguin as his eyes widened in startled surprise and he put his arm around her, being careful not to touch the covered wound as she rested her head on his big soft shoulder and gave a tired sigh.

He rolled on to his back, closing his eyes. As sleep quickly came to him, his flippers went up and he started to softly snore. Debbie watched in fascination, then she smiled as the thought came to her quite unexpectedly that there was something endearing about this Penguin man... Tiredness soon took over.

And while she slept, the lonely man who had never known the company of another person in his bed before woke up, and then he lay there looking at her, his small eyes wide, as he wondered what it would be like to kiss her. He wondered a lot of things - all of them, were things he guessed he would never know...

 

Debbie woke to the sight of Penguin beside her, he blinked and then smiled.

“Good morning!” he said with enthusiasm, “Today is a new day, a good day to plan how to take out those droid creatures... Is there any way we can reprogram them? I'm planning to soon attack the gathering in the city square, for the lighting of the Christmas tree. Powerful people will be there... If I had one of those droids, imagine what they could do!”

“ _Don't!”_ she sat up, pausing to press a hand to her shoulder as a deep ache went through it. She shivered in the cold air. Through the gaps in the boards, the sun looked high. It had to be almost noon...And those creatures wouldn't stay away forever...

Penguin sat up too, and she looked hard at him.

“If you start up those plans, you won't live to see them through. You will be killed, I know your future! And as for the droids, they can't be reprogrammed, they take their orders from base – back in my reality. I only know how to destroy them.”

Penguin gave a small nod. He met her gaze as his flippers opened and closed in small movements as he held back all that was on his mind.

“What now?” she asked, “You want to say something?”

As he sat there in bed, still wrapped in his bathrobe, he was looking at her, still covered by a towel. The sight of her made him instantly hard, and he smiled broadly as he tried again to turn this around.

“I have big plans,” he reminded her, “Plans that may not fail -”

“ _But they will!”_

“Hear me out,” Penguin said, “I have big plans, big prospects _and_ I have a big cock! Could any of these things be incentive for you to stay?”

Debbie laughed as she rolled on to her back, yelping between laughter as the impact of the mattress on her covered wound pained her. Penguin looked at her in confusion.

“What is so amusing?” he demanded, “I was only telling you about my good points!”

She laughed again. She reached for his flipper and held it, stroking the surprisingly warm and soft flesh. He took her hand in his grip as he looked at her, still trying to make sense of her laughter.

“I was raised beneath ground. Maybe I don't talk like a person from above.”

“No, you don't,” she told him honestly, and suddenly she felt very warm towards Penguin, who had clearly lived a lonely life. And if he didn't follow her advice, his days would be numbered, too... Suddenly he looked almost lost as his gruff voice lowered.

“Perhaps the fact that I was born a freak means an early grave would be a kindness. _I have never known love._ ”

“You've never had anyone special or close in your life?”

He shook his head.

“No one has ever held me,” he confessed as she saw deep sadness in his gaze, but then his mood brightened.

“But I could be a fine lover! I could show you things I can do with my flipper that you wouldn't believe!”

“Things you've only dreamed about in your imagination?” she asked cautiously.

He nodded again, and now his pale face carried the hint of a blush.

“I am a virgin,” he said sadly.

Debbie laid back down, cautiously reaching for him as her injured shoulder throbbed.

“Come here, Penguin. I'll hold you.”

“Really?” he was suddenly so full of excitement that he could barely contain. She laughed softly as he rolled on to his side, right up close as she rested her arm over his round waist.

“This is actually rather comfortable. Like resting my arm on a soft pillow.”

He turned on his back, as her arm stayed draped over his body, now sliding with him and resting across his round belly.

He tilted his head, sharing her pillow as he looked at her.

“This is nice,” he said, “Warm...”

Then he shifted his lower body awkwardly, and as she looked at him, that blush was back.

“Sorry...I'm....” he said no more, not wanting to wreck this moment by confessing his cock was rock solid.

He was struggling. Debbie could see it as she felt a rush of warmth and tenderness for the Penguin man from below ground, a man who had been rejected at the start of this life in the cruellest of ways, and had gone through life completely alone until now...

“I think I know,” she said, and as she shifted closer, she dropped her voice to a whisper, “Turn on your side.”

His small eyes stretched wide and he turned, looking startled but excited.

“Are you going to touch me? You actually _want_ to do that?”

Debbie leaned close, silencing him with a kiss. Now he looked truly stunned, his lips were still parted, his dark eyes fixed on her in wonder and disbelief. Suddenly the crude and self assured man she had met on arrival had gone. Instead, here was the real Mr Penguin, lying there on his back and trembling with nervous excitement as he froze, breathing hard, his eyes wide as he watched her hand go down to his bathrobe and open it up. As her gaze wandered over his body, he didn't know whether the push back the covers or grab them tightly and hide his nakedness – yet she didn't seem shocked or disgusted, she didn't look at him the way people in the street looked towards the sewers in disgust when they spoke of the freak that lived underground...

As she slid her hand lower, she gently grasped his long, thick cock and began to stroke it softly.

Penguin gave a gasp and his flipper raised, closing gently about her arm as his body trembled.

“ _Debbie!”_ he said breathlessly, _“Yes, yes!”_

It was all he could say as she jerked him harder, speaking softly to him as he shook and panted and the joy of his first experience with another person took him over completely.

“Slowly,” she said, “Don't rush, I know you like that...”

He made a small whine, then his other flipper raised and he twitched it as each jerk got firmer and he panted loudly. He shivered and his grip got tighter as he gave a short, loud groan and his cock throbbed and spilled over her hand, then over his body as more come pumped out. He fell still, staring up at the ceiling . His flippers were trembling as he rested them on his round body and turned his head and looked at her, his senses slowly returning. There was a look of wonder in his eyes.

“I have never, ever....” he gave sob, “Thank you!” he said tearfully, and she pulled him closer, ignoring the pain in her shoulder as she led him tightly. His small, heavy body shook with sobs of relief to know he had finally released with another person, a first time experience that until now, he could only have dreamed about...

“I insist you stay!” he said as he raised his head and met her gaze. Tears were shining wet on his face and she brushed them away.

“I can't,” she told him, and she sat up, as her arms felt empty without him, separating herself from the longing she had shared with him unspoken to do more, to share more, to find love and comfort together.

He sat up. She turned around and me this gaze.

“There is a tracker buried in my shoulder. In a city where a man with physical differences is called a monster, how would they react to me, from the future, asking for a tracker developed in another dimension to be removed? And as long as I stay here, that signal is making its way back to them and they will send more of those droids! The only way is for me to leave -”

“ _No!”_ he said firmly, getting out of bed and standing there with his bathrobe open as he glared at her, “You will _not_ leave, not like this, not after we -”

The pain she felt in her heart had taken her by surprise. She blinked away tears, and they were not from the pain of grabbing her clothing and getting dressed quickly, the pain her shoulder was bearable compared to how she felt about leaving Penguin here, in a reality where he would soon die by the result of his own actions...

“If the droids show up here, I may not have enough weaponry to fight them off a second time. And they might kill you and your people and me! If I cross dimension now, they will bypass your world and go into zone two, maybe in three, four day's time. That's enough time for me to have the tracker cut out and destroyed, and to locate their Penguin. If he has the key I can return it and the mission is over - and then I'll be able go home and see my kids again!”

Penguin paused for thought as worry reflected in his eyes.

“Take me with you!”

She put on her jacket, the pain dragged as her shoulder burned, then she walked over to him, feeling stiff from the battle the night before and as she wrapped her arms around him, a look of surprise registered on his face as she gave him a tight hug, and he put his arms around her, his flippers open, then they closed and he held her tightly, as sadness and anger burned in his gaze.

“You are the only one who has ever laid beside me, ever touched me! And now you want to reject me!”

“No!” she put her hand on his cheek as he pulled back. Despite his pallor, his face was warm.

“I have to leave to buy some time before those things come back and when they do, they will follow me! I don't want you to get killed and you will if we have another fight on our hands!”

He let go of her and turned sharply, waddling over to the wardrobe, then he opened it up and took out his clothing, starting to get dressed as he kept his back turned.

“I suppose this is what I should have expected, why would anyone want me? I used to think I was handsome, but there are no mirrors here. Then I saw the reaction of the people above ground, heard the headlines of the newspapers... creature in the sewers, missing link between bird and man!”

Her heart was aching for him as she fastened the belt of Eclipse gas and then holstered her pistols.

“I'm sorry,” she said, “I can't stay. Not if I want to keep you alive. And by the way - when I'm gone, stay alive! Don't do anything to cause trouble, it will be the end of you and I _don't_ want you to die in a pool of toxic water!”

Penguin had finished dressing. He turned back to her, hurt reflecting in his eyes.

“Maybe I have the key!”

Debbie shook her head. She picked up the blaster and cautiously placed the strap over her undamaged shoulder. It felt heavier than before, and it was nothing to do with the heaviness in her heart. She had not expected to meet the one Penguin who was in the eyes of some, a freak, and feel this way about him – and she also knew she had broken a rule more than once by warning him to change his known destiny... But none of that concerned her as much as the pain and weakness she felt thanks to the shoulder wound. The dressing felt wet. She knew she was still bleeding, and that tracker was buried deep, too. She had to get to the next zone and find someone to take it out for her, because pretty soon she would collapse if it wasn't properly treated...

Penguin waddled towards her.

“Maybe,” he spread his flipper wide as he gestured to himself, “ _I_ really do have the key! Perhaps I was hiding it, maybe you should stay around and let me find it for you!”

“Penguin, I'm sorry,” she said, “I really am, “But this mission is too important, I can't afford to fail for any reason, even though I wish I could take you with me, I wish I'd met you under different circumstances...”

Her heart was aching again.

“I'm sorry, I have to go,” she told him sadly, then she leaned in and he tilted his head, carefully angling his posture to be sure his beak like nose didn't poke out her eye as they shared a tender kiss. As soon as she stepped back, he wanted to cry. _This wasn't fair..._

“But I have the key!” he protested, “ _Please_ Debbie, just stay with me!”

She smiled fondly as she shook her head.

“I can't afford to fail, and you _don't_ have that key,” she said, then she opened up the cover on the watch and turned the dial to Zone Two. Her form faded into haze and vanished like a ghost.

Penguin stood there in silence, looking at the spot where she had been standing, now he was entirely alone once more... It would be a few days before his people came back, but he still had his plans to sabotage the lighting of the Christmas tree, the first step to take as he moved on from the world below, to ascend to world above where he rightly belonged... he had no intention of changing his plans despite her warnings.

_But he did have one regret..._

Penguin waddled over to the wall beside the window, pushed an old painting aside to reveal a small safe, then he turned the dial and opened it and as his eyes burned with regret at his own bad choices, he drew out a small, clear bar with a square tip on one end, inside of it was filled with tiny wires and lights that were all out. He looked down at it still feeling the sting of regret. _It had been too precious, he was told, to be kept in the world above, and that was why the stranger had sought out the Penguin Man of Gotham to keep his valuable item in safe keeping, hidden away..._ When Debbie had come looking for it, his first instinct had been to say nothing because this item seemed to be of great value...

Now he understood, and he knew he should have told her sooner. But he had been slow to trust and the battle had shook him badly, he had never seen creatures like the droids before. Then Debbie had given him wonderful and unexpected affection... all distractions, and yet when he had told her truth, she had not believed him, and now she was gone far away to search for a key she would not find, as she fought off more of those droids... He was afraid for her, and he feared for the outcome. She had told him the truth behind the earth tremors, too... He put the key back in the safe, locked it and slid the picture back into place, then Penguin waddled over to the boarded window, frustration burning in his gaze as he caught sight of the world beyond, all bright and beautiful with no room for a man like himself, no room for a freak... Debbie had made everything bearable, and now she was gone, on a search that would lead her nowhere...

Just then, as if nature itself was serving a silent reminder of the lingering threat, the ground shook with a brief shudder that made the room shake, and dust floated down as a small board popped off the window and hit the floor with a crash as the tremor stopped.

“ _Why didn't you believe me?”_ he said angrily, _“When I said I had the key, I was telling the truth!”_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

Chapter 3

 

**ZONE TWO: Gotham Universe**

There was mist rolling in from the vast river that led out to sea. The skies were grey and the world shone washed in recent rainfall. The city was vast and seemed permanently cast in the shadow of bad weather. The river water was choppy and looked grey as the skies above as Debbie stood at the riverside, looking about the view as the flow of the water did nothing to ease her light headedness. Her back felt wet beneath her jacket, she knew she was still bleeding and the pain was taking over more than she cared to admit. This city was much like her own, the Gotham she called home – but it wasn't her home and her kids were far away and she shivered as she had never felt so distant and separated from those she loved before, as the pain stabbed deep into her shoulder. She turned away from the water and began to head towards the street that led into the vast city...

“I can do this,” she said weakly as she staggered down a lonely, narrow street and remembered the capable agent she used to be back in the day.

“I _can_ cope,” she whispered as she swayed on her feet and staggered on as the blaster at her side felt suddenly too heavy, “It's just a minor wound... nothing at all to worry about, Debbie.. just keep going...”

And then she leaned against a wall the world turned dark as she slumped to the ground, as blood began to pool beneath her.

 

As night fell, a stranger collapsed in a quiet street was nothing new in a city like Gotham. Those who did see her walked around her, assuming someone had been downed by a gunshot – happened every day in a city like this one, nothing new there...She was on the ground for hours.

_Then something was patting her face._

Debbie stirred, feeling stiff and cold as her shoulder felt numb and then throbbed. Blood loss and pain were not a great combination at any age, she was sure she could have handled this back in the old days, and probably gone on to another job before getting patched up... but these days? _No way. She was older now, she was not up for this whether the fate of the world depended on her or not... She was ready to give up_. Then it happened again, something small and warm patted her cheek.

“ _Wake up, wake up!”_ said a small, gruff voice.

She slowly opened her eyes, looking up to see a tiny boy, small and round with flippers for hands. He looked down at her and smiled.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

The child looked over his shoulder, then he ran off towards the shadows, his little shoes tapping fast on the ground as he toddled quickly over to... _Who was that standing there?_ He wore a long coat and a top hat, he was short and round and as he held out a gloved flipper hand to the little boy, she blinked and they were gone.

“ _Penguin?”_ she whispered, and she sat up and the narrow street turned sideways as her head spun.

Someone was gripping her shoulders. She blinked and looked up into the eyes of a stranger who was looking at her with concern in his eyes.

“What did you say?” he asked.

She looked past his shoulder, to the place where she thought she had seen Penguin. He was still on her mind, she had not wanted to leave him... and why the hell had she seen a kid that looked just like him?

“I'm looking for Penguin,” she said, blinking away the blur to her vision.

The man kept a hand on her shoulder to steady her, then flashed his badge.

“I'm Detective Jim Gordon, GCPD,” he told her, “Who injured you?”

Now her mind was becoming sharp once more. She grabbed at Jim's hand, insisting on hauling herself upright, then she leaned against the wall, fighting off another wave of weakness.

“You won't believe me.”

“I might?”

She looked into his eyes.

“You're the Jim Gordon who puts Oswald Cobblepot in jail for ten years?”

Jim's eyes widened. Her remark had startled him. The thought of doing that to his Ozzie... not _exactly_ his Ozzie, but in his heart, he had never stopped caring for the guy even though he had held back for too long, the thought that he could let anyone do that to him sent a spike of pain into his heart.

“I don't know what you're talking about. Penguin has often helped the GCPD, he's the one criminal in this city who is willing to cross that line!”

She pressed a hand to her shoulder as she wished she could reach inside and tear out that tracker that throbbed like a hot coal.

“It hasn't happened yet. There's going to be a war and the city will fall... But none of that matters if I don't find Penguin!”

Jim was confused as he looked at the woman who was leaning against the wall, clutching at her painful shoulder as her fair hair hung in her eyes and she struggled to stay on her feet. She was heavily armed – so were lots of people in this part of town – but he had never before seen weapons like she carried...

“Who are you?” he said.

“Debbie Flint. Don't bother searching for me on your public records – I don't exist in your world.”

She was making no sense, but she was also bleeding.

“You're injured, I need to get you to a doctor,” Jim said.

“No!” Debbie said sharply, straightening up and stepping away from the wall as she found her balance again, “I have a tracking device in my shoulder – it has to be taken out and destroyed! I can't let it fall into the wrong hands. Your reality doesn't have this kind of tech, Jim! If they did....” she looked at him, saw he was staring in disbelief, and she shook her head, “If your reality had this kind of tech, if they could build the kind of droids that exist in my world, Gotham would fall a lot sooner. _More than fall. It would be dust_.”

Jim looked back at her feeling bewildered. She didn't strike him as crazy. She looked like she had just stepped out of a war zone – and he had most definitely never seen weapons like hers before and for now, he was keeping an open mind about everything she had said...

“You don't believe me?” she asked, “I'll prove it...”

She tugged a small pistol from the holster and turned down the setting, then aimed it at a wall across the empty street, firing off a laser shot that blew a small hole in the brickwork. She powered it down, then held it up.

“A-Class hand held solar powered laser gun. I strongly suggest you make sure me and these weapons don't fall into the wrong hands. I need to find Penguin fast.”

“What's he done?” Jim asked, silently feeling caught between anger at what he could be mixed up in and fear for his safety.

“Just take me to him, he may be looking after a key – if he is, he's going to need my help because those things are hard to kill and they will be here soon.”

“What things?” Jim had put his arm around her, supporting her as she leaned against him.

“I'll explain when we see Penguin. And even if you don't believe me now, you will soon enough, it's coming...”

“What is?”

Jim was getting a creeping sense of unease. There was something about her story that seemed to echo truth despite the fact that he wanted it all to be the ravings of a crazy person. He was still thinking about her weaponry. There was nothing in Gotham like that, it was technology he had never seen before and as a cop, he knew every weapon that was out there on the streets... What ever truth there was to her claims, he knew more light would be shed on the matter if he took her straight to Oswald, as at the back of his mind he felt more concern for Cobblepot than he cared to acknowledge... He led her towards his car, and she leaned on him all the way.

An electric blue flicker briefly lit up a shaded passageway and it caught Jim's eye. As he turned, he let go of Debbie, who staggered, slamming a hand against the car to steady herself.

“That was careful assistance from one of Gotham's finest! Thanks a lot, I almost fell on my ass!”

He gave no reply, for a moment he froze then stepped back, oblivious to the fact that he had knocked against her painful shoulder, and she had yelled out in pain. He had seen a lot of sights in this city but nothing like _this_...His eyes grew wide, fixed on the sight of the metallic shape twisting and turning as it raised and arm and from the arm, grew a weapon from its closed hand. Its eyes glowed white as it prepared to take aim, and he drew his gun.

“ _GCPD, drop your weapon!”_ he yelled.

Debbie looked up sharply, and saw the creature as despair reflected in her eyes.

“One got through already?” she exclaimed, and she raised the blaster, powering it up and this time remembering the second switch beneath it.

Jim took aim and fired. The bullet hit the creature in the chest, stopping it in its tracks for a split second as the bullet sunk into the living metal and vanished.

“What the hell...” Jim whispered in disbelief.

“I told you so!” Debbie said, and as the gun fired up with a whine of electronic power, she pulled the trigger as a shot of glowing fire hit the figure, covered it in a mesh, and the creature exploded.

“What a waste of precious ammo!” she added, “Just for _one_ of those things!” She ripped a cannister from her belt and twisted it, then pitched it into the middle of the mess where the silver liquid began to bubble and boil and something in its centre burst as the gas reduced the gleaming mess to sludge.

Jim was still staring at the sight of the aftermath:

_What the hell was he dealing with? Were more of these things on the way?_

“Now do you believe me?” Debbie asked as her face paled and the pain in her shoulder silently screamed.

Jim had also paled as he thought of Oswald...What did he have to do with this?

“Get in the car, I'll take you to Penguin,” he replied, opening up the passenger door.

She got in heavily and as she slumped back against the seat, pain stabbed through her wound. Jim hurried around to the driver's side, got in and started the car, pulling out of the parking space, then turning the car around sharply and heading for the road. He glanced back once, saw no more sign of any more of those creatures turning up, and as the road ahead was clear, he sped up, making tires screech on road surface as he headed for the Iceberg Lounge.

 

The lounge was closed to customers, but with Jim Gordon showing up with an injured woman, they were soon allowed in and escorted by armed guard to Oswald's office. Debbie was still leaning against Jim as they made their way into a luxurious room where there was a polished desk with a grand chair behind it and as the man who sat there rose from his seat, leaning on the desk for support as he reached for his cane, one look at him told Debbie she had found Penguin – at least, the man who was Penguin in this reality. And he couldn't have been more different to the round, deformed man with the flipper hands:

This Penguin was slim and toned and wore an immaculate suit. His raven black hair was spiked and his pale eyes shone with the kind of energy and fire that only a man who was king of the underworld could possess. He was strikingly handsome, too. But as they entered the room, and Jim helped Debbie as she staggered beside him, he leaned on his cane and limped around his desk with a look of alarm on his face.

“Jim, what's going on?” he demanded.

“Ask her,” Jim said as he helped Debbie to slump down on to a chair.

Oswald leaned back against his desk, then he rested both hands on his cane and set a cold gaze on her.

“What is this about?” he asked.

“I'm here for the key,” Debbie replied, “If you have it, you need to hand it over because the person who told you to keep it is dead and those earth tremors that have been happening lately? They're going to get worse. And this isn't the only version of Gotham City. There are four others. All will eventually be destroyed if I don't get that key back!”

Oswald stared at her.

“Are you insane?” he asked.

“I believe her,” Jim said as he stood beside her seat, “Some kind of creature came after us, after I found her. Bullets couldn't stop it. But her weaponry can and she says more are coming. If you have this key, hand it over before the city gets wiped out, Oswald!”

His eyes widened as anger darkened his expression.

“I don't have a key!” he protested, “I don't even know why I'm listening to this crap! Clearly, she's deranged.”

“No she's not,” Jim replied firmly, looking into Oswald's eyes as his heart silently feared or the safety of Gotham's crime king, “I have seen what those creatures can do. Bullets can't stop them!”

She had been sagging in the seat as her shoulder burned, now Debbie raised her head, looking up at Oswald.

“They are mostly made of living, programmable metal but they have an organic core that is oxygen dependant. They are androids and they've been programmed to seek out the Penguin in each of the our realities -”

“I thought you said five?” Oswald asked doubtfully.

“Where I come from, we don't have a Penguin in our Gotham city,” she replied, “But in the other four realities, he exists.”

Oswald thought about it: _Jim believed her? He had seen one of these creatures? And there were other Penguins out there somewhere?_ He leaned harder on his cane as he looked at her.

“There are three other versions of me?”

“Not exactly like you, but they are high profile criminals and they all go by the name Penguin,” she replied.

Oswald had worked it out – if her crazy story was the truth, clearly, she was speaking to the wrong guy.

“I don't have your key,” he told her, “But it seems you brought a threat with you when you arrived from where ever your reality is!”

Just then the door behind them closed and laughter echoed about the room.

“Oh dear Oswald, why are you listening to this nonsense? She's clearly deranged,” said Edward Nygma, as he strolled in with Victor Zsasz at his side.

As Ed crossed the room to pour a drink and stand back and watch the scene unfold with a look of amusement on his face, Victor walked over to join Oswald, and he paused to look down at the wounded woman with what looked like a bullet hole in the back of her jacket. She was bleeding and she looked exhausted.

“Have you heard all this?” Oswald asked, and Victor nodded.

“I caught it all as I came in... sounds like bullshit to me.”

“It's _not_ bullshit!” Jim said firmly, “I know what I saw -”

“And she's clearly controlling these creatures!” Oswald insisted, looking coldly at Debbie, “I'm willing to bet this is a plan by one of my enemies to have me killed! Who created that metal monster that Jim couldn't destroy, Debbie? Was it Hugo Strange?”

“Who?” she said.

Oswald's temper was rising as he limped closer, leaning in as he glared at her.

“You're part of a plot to murder me! I'm not a fool, Debbie. If you don't tell me the truth, I'll have you tortured until I get it!”

She gave a sigh as she raised her head and the pain in her shoulder throbbed deeply.

“Torture? You're nothing like the guy in Zone One. The other Penguin wanted to fill my void!”

Oswald's eyes widened.

“Excuse me?”

“He wanted to fill my void,” she repeated, as her own anger rose, helped along by the sickening pain deep in her shoulder, as the thought _I am too old for bullshit_ ran through her head and she launched into a rant, “And I only took this job for the money, they promised me no running, they said this would be easy! And maybe I _wanted_ to stay in Zone One with the big guy with flippers for hands who has never known love in his whole life, and yes, maybe he _would_ have got to fill _more_ than one void for me if I'd stayed around, but no, I had to move on because _you_ or one of your other selves, has a key that Infinite Vision need back in place before the reality stabiliser collapses!”

Just at that moment, there was a rumble as the building shook, a mild earth tremor that ceased abruptly. She looked up at Jim, then to Oswald.

“That's a sign. It's a warning and its going to get worse unless I find the key!”

Oswald was staring at her in shocked silence. Ed had just helped himself to a second drink. There was something about the way she had said that about the tremors that had started up a sense of creeping unease as he realised she might just be telling the truth...

“I believe her,” Jim said, looking directly at Oswald, “And there are more of those things coming, and bullets can't stop them.”

Debbie leaned back in the chair as pain registered on her face and blood dripped to the floor.

“One of the droids attacked the other Penguin's hideout. I was shot in the shoulder with a tracking device and I thought I had a lot of time, but I passed out and lost a few hours, and one already followed me though to this reality, that means more are on the way. I need this thing out of my shoulder, you have to destroy it to cut off the signal!”

“That's easy done!”

Victor pulled a sharp blade and stepped forward, grabbing her by the shoulder as she gave a yelp of pain.

“ _Not like that!”_ Jim said in fury, closing his hand about Victor's wrist as Oswald's number one hit man shot him a death stare.

“Ed?”

He looked up from his drink as Oswald turned elegantly, leaning on his cane.

“Debbie has a tracking device in her shoulder. Remove it for her?”

“What, now?” Ed asked, “I don't have the right tools for the job.”

Oswald had heard enough of her story to start to see there was some truth in it, even though it seemed incredible, even for a city like this one where he had long ago realised anything was possible. Now, he had a plan.

“Not right now, when we return to the mansion,” he said, “We're leaving.”

 

Jim accompanied them on the drive back to the mansion. After hearing the crazy tale told by Debbie, and then encountering that metal creature that could swallow bullets, he wasn't about to let Oswald out of his sight. On the drive from the Lounge Debbie had weakly spoken of how she suspected the company that hired her had been corrupted and added she believed they wanted her to fail, they wanted the key to fall into enemy hands. Then she said it was clear the tracker droids had been programmed to hunt down the Penguins and find the key, and Jim's blood had turned to ice.

“They won't get past us!” Ed had said, sounding very sure about it.

“Don't underestimate what these things can do,” Debbie warned him, “When you see them, you'll understand.”

“I've seen them,” Jim said in a hushed voice, “I know they are hard to kill. Oswald, you should get out of the city. Maybe I can arrange a safe house for you.”

Oswald looked back at him and as soon as he saw the look in his eyes, Jim's heart sank. The king of Gotham was going nowhere...

“I'm sure this is something my people can handle,” Oswald replied, “Thank you for the offer, Jim – but no, I won't be running from this!”

In that moment Debbie had caught a look in Jim's eyes – clearly, he cared more for Oswald than he voiced aloud. She thought about the time lines and the lives the Penguins were destined to lead. It seemed so wrong that Oswald would spend his life alone and ultimately become enemies with Jim, when right now, they still had time to turn that around... But Debbie had no energy to think about anything any more, and she drifted off to sleep with her shoulder aching as the drive continued.

 

The mansion was old and very beautiful, but Debbie was in no shape to appreciate that as she lay on a bed in one of the upstairs rooms, her jacket off and her vest pulled down as she lay on her side and Edward Nygma stuck a needle in her shoulder. The pain faded out and she gave a tired sigh.

“So, where are you really from?” he asked as she felt pressure go deep into the wound.

“I told you the truth.”

Ed chuckled as he carefully pushed the instrument deeper, locating the tracking device.

“If you did tell the truth about where you're from, maybe there's an opportunity in this for both of us.”

There was a dull ache starting where something inside her shoulder was pushed a little too deeply.

“That hurts.”

“I apologise... give me a minute...” he worked carefully, pausing to wipe a trickle of blood from her shoulder.

“If there are other cities like Gotham, perhaps there are opportunities for someone like myself...Perhaps there are other Riddlers out there?”

She laughed weakly as she laid there on her side and he started to draw out the tracking device.

“Maybe there are. Maybe not. Where I come from, there is no criminal named Penguin. But even if there are other versions of you, each world has differences. I've seen the Gotham City in Zone One. It's not like this one. It's darker, it's older... the buildings are different. Subtle differences in landscape, and big differences in people, too. The Penguin back there is nothing like Oswald.”

“Tell me about your world?”

He drew the tracker from her shoulder and it exited the wound with a pop as blood flowed and he wiped it away, then paused to look at the round, glowing device, before cracking it sharply into a small metal dish. The object stopped glowing as the power source died, then he cast it aside and cleaned up the wound as Debbie spoke of her world.

“It's tidy and clean. The crime rate isn't very high, not compared to other realities, we have a very orderly society, strict laws and stiff penalties and what the cops can't find the time to clean up, is given over to the bounty hunters. We have state of the art weapons and technology in general is highly advanced.”

Ed started to smile as he began to sew up the wound.

“I'm guessing your weapons are also highly advanced?”

“And you need to understand how they work, Mr Nygma. They are dangerous in the wrong hands – and I can't allow anyone to keep this kind of tech, not in a world like this one. You're not ready for it.”

Ed's thoughts had been on the possibility of crossing into another reality and pulling off a lucrative bank job, then simply crossing back into his own time and place. But her world didn't sound like the kind of place where he wanted to run a risk like that. And it made sense about the tech, too – this city was having a hard enough time dealing with the results of experiments by Hugo Strange, his monsters were all over the city and had been for a while...

“I need to rest,” Debbie said as he started dressing the closed wound, “And then we wait.”

“What for?” asked Ed.

“For the rest of the droids to some through. They would have picked up on the signal. One must have caught my signature as I crossed zones and followed me in. Others are on the way.”

Ed felt tension rising as he heard her words and thought about the look he had seen in Jim's eyes when he had described the bullet resistant creature.

“How many others?”

She turned cautiously on her back as she pulled up her vest, and now lying on her back was not nearly as painful as before.

“I guess it depends on the size of the opponents. The other Penguin had a small group of followers, they didn't seem to have any military training or to be carrying powerful weapons. They ran when we were attacked. That time they sent in three, and it would have been enough to wipe out everyone in the hideout if I hadn't caught them with the blaster.”

“Oh dear...” Ed drew in a tight breath, “They will attack us based on the size of the muscle behind Oswald?”

“Right.”

Ed's face paled.

“Oswald is the most powerful gang leader in the city. He has many people out there...”

Debbie fought off tiredness as Ed got up and she saw his hands were trembling as he tided up after dressing her wound, he was shaking his head now, trying to banish a very scary thought.

“ _You're not wrong,”_ she whispered as she closed her eyes, _“Oswald has a lot of people behind him. That means they will send an army...”_

Then exhaustion took over as she slipped into a deep sleep. Fear shone in Ed's gaze as he looked to the blaster on the floor beside the bed. Something was coming, and it was even more powerful than anything they had ever seen before and he didn't know in that moment if he ought to walk out and disappear, or stay around and wait for the shit to hit the fan. With his close working relationship with Oswald, they had much to lose if the worst happened, and now he got a creeping sense of unease as he thought about that look he had seen in Jim's eyes. He had been scared. Since when was Jim Gordon scared of anything? And maybe Oswald's life was at risk, too... He left the room and hurried back down the stairs, his mind in turmoil as he headed back to the front room, leaving Debbie to sleep, to either recover from her ordeal of fighting creatures not from this world, or to dream up more crazy fantasies. _He wanted her to be crazy. The other option was too terrifying to contemplate..._

 

Oswald was outside the mansion, leaning on his cane as he paced the driveway, then he turned back and looked at Jim, whose gaze reflected deep concern. He had already told him once he had no intention of running from this looming threat, but still Jim had insisted he wanted to get him out of the city and to a place of safety.

“What would my people think if I ran away?” Oswald demanded, “I can't do that Jim. I'm Penguin, I can't simply run and hide!”

“I saw what we will be up against,” Jim warned, “This isn't like a shoot out with a rival gang. You won't stand a chance against those things!”

Oswald turned sharply, limped over to Jim, up close as he leaned in, glaring at him.

“Ed seems convinced we can handle it, so is Victor!”

Jim glanced back to the porch, where Victor Zsasz stood watching the heated conversation unfold. Zsasz shrugged and looked away, keeping out of the conversation. Clearly Victor had great faith in his weapons and thought nothing was immune to his fire power, but he hadn't seen those creatures yet...

“Ed thinks we can handle it,” Oswald said again.

“And that's good enough for you?” Jim demanded, “Ed says it's okay, so you want to risk your life?”

Oswald's eyes blazed with anger.

“ _I trust Ed!”_

“A little too much,” Jim said as tension crept into his voice, and then he felt caught out as Oswald blinked and in that split second his anger was gone, replaced by confusion.

“What's that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

Jim looked back at him, holding back so much as the words he wanted to say ran through his head : _He doesn't feel the same, Oswald. You keep hoping and it's never going to happen. His partnership with you is all about money and power. He's a friend, nothing more. Never will be. And I bitterly regret I had a chance with you long ago and I pushed you away, I regret it and you will never know that..._

Jim took a deep breath. Oswald was glaring at him in stony silence, demanding an explanation as Jim thought about what he really needed to say:

_It means...I don't want you to get yourself killed, I love you, Oswald!_

Oh, he could picture the look on his face if he said _that_ at this moment when so much was at stake and his mind was on protecting his empire, that empire that would always come first because he had nothing else in life to live for each day...It ripped at his heart every time he saw Oswald, looking powerful and capable, a man who had conquered all and would conquer more. Even his painful limp didn't stop him or hold him back. Oswald carried so much pride and brave defiance in the face of all he had suffered and all he had lost on his rise to the top. Jim admired him for it. Everything about Oswald was beautiful. And he guessed he would never get to tell him that.

“I don't want you to get yourself killed!” Jim stated, “I want you stay safe, the underworld is peaceful because you control it and...” he stopped abruptly.

Oswald had sensed that sharp pulling back as Jim looked at him as if he had almost been caught out.

“And, what?” he asked, looking at him intently.

“And you're my friend,” Jim told him sincerely, “You've helped me more than once. Now let me help you.”

“Only if you're willing to stand beside me and fight, if it comes to it,” said Oswald.

Jim knew he wasn't going to win this. Oswald was determined to do it his way.

“Okay,” Jim said, “We'll do this your way. I'm going to call Harvey and tell him to put out an alert – any sign of odd activity and I want every available man there to evacuate the area. Then you'd better come up with a plan, because I've seen one of those things and I know bullets are useless against them.”

There was a gleam in Oswald's eyes. At that moment, he was thinking like the crime king that he was as he glanced over at Victor.

“Let me know if Debbie is awake,” he said, “I need to talk to her. She knows all about these metal creatures. She must know what their weaknesses are.”

Victor nodded and went back in the house. Jim gave a sigh of frustration.

“You really want to see this through, don't you, Oswald.”

Defiance shone in Oswald's gaze.

“This is my city, Jim,” he replied, “You stand for the law, I control the other side of it. And I care about Gotham as much as you do. I have every intention of actively fighting off any hostile invasion on my turf!”

Then he turned away sharply, leaned on his cane and limped back towards the open door as Jim stood there watching him leave, as sadness reflected in his gaze and more worries haunted his troubled mind than Oswald could possibly imagine.

 

The sound of tiny feet running quickly stirred Debbie from sleep. She opened her eyes, then closed them again, turning over on the bed as she missed the tiny round boy with flippers for hands who ran past her door and toward the other end of the upper hall. Excitement shone in his small dark eyes as he pushed open a door and ran inside.

“Hello Ruby, hello friend!” he said brightly, then he stopped, looking about the bedroom. _This wasn't Ruby's room, none of her toys were here_... he toddled out again, then half ran, half waddled up to an open doorway. He smiled as he saw Debbie asleep on the bed and hurried inside, then reached out with a flipper and patted her hand.

Debbie woke up with a warm, small hand patting hers, then she blinked away sleep and saw it wasn't a hand. It was a flipper, a tiny flipper belonging to a small boy aged around three, who was wearing a dark suit and looked like a miniature version of Penguin – the Penguin from Zone One, the man who was still on her mind even though she knew she could not go back... The little boy smiled as his round eyes sparkled.

“Don't worry,” he said to her, “It's going to be okay.”

Her shoulder was aching slightly as the pain relief began to wear off. She was about to sit up and ask the little boy who he was and what he was doing here in Oswald's house, but then footsteps sounded outside.

“Bye bye!” he said brightly, and he turned away and waddled quickly from the room, as Debbie slowly sat up, wondering if her exhaustion had brought on a hallucination... _Had she just seen a child who looked like the flipper handed Penguin?_

 

The little boy hurried down the upper hall, coming to a sharp stop as his small flippers opened and closed quickly and he looked up, and Victor Zsasz looked down at the child in confusion.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The boy raised a flipper and opened and closed it as he smiled.

“Hello Victor!” he said with a broad smile.

Victor stared at him. _How the hell did the kid know his name?_

Just then he heard heavy footfalls behind him, and he turned to see a man with flipper hands wearing a grand, rather old fashioned grey suit, like the boy he was short and rounded, and his nose was long and bird-like. He tipped his hat to Victor, then held out his gloved flipper, and the little boy ran up to him and grasped it, and as they turned away they both vanished.

Victor was breaking into a sweat as he wondered if all this talk about other worlds and dimensions and bullet resistant creatures had made his mind play tricks on him. Or Maybe Ed Nygma had dropped one of those pills of his into his coffee. If had spiked him for fun, Ed was in deep shit when this stuff wore off... He looked up and down the hallway. No sign of the kid or the equally strange guy who had walked off into nowhere. Victor took a deep breath, shaking his head as he reminded himself he was not the type to hallucinate, then he went into the room where Debbie was resting. She was wide awake now, sitting up and as he walked in, she asked a question that left him feeling even more confused:

“Did you see him?” she asked, “Did you see the little boy?”

Victor stared at her in silence.

_She had seen him too?_

_The kid was real, what the hell was going on?_

 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 

“Did you see him?” she repeated.

“I saw him, yes. And then he vanished along with a guy who looked as odd as he did.”

Suddenly the pain in her shoulder didn't matter any more as she got up, walked past Victor and looked out the door. The hallway was empty.

“Vanished?” she said, “No, this isn't possible... no way...”

“You have a theory?” asked Victor, “Because if you do, I really need to hear it!”

Just then Oswald entered the room and looked from Debbie to Victor as he stood there leaning on his cane.

“Who vanished?” he demanded.

“I saw a kid...” Victor began and as he explained, Debbie listened, as she tried to make sense of it all. The little boy looked like the Penguin with flipper hands, and according to Victor, Penguin had called to the child and then disappeared... It wasn't possible. She had the spare reality shifting device in her pocket. He had no way of leaving his reality...But she was sure no one else could possibly look exactly like that...

“What's your theory on this?” Oswald asked her.

Debbie shook her head.

“It's nothing to do with me.”

“And he knew my name. He called me Victor.”

Oswald stared at him as he slowly shook his head.

“But you've never seen him before?”

“I think I'd remember a kid who looked like that, Boss!” Victor exclaimed, “he had flipper hands, and a long sharp nose and he was short and wide... like the guy he left with, they must be related.”

Oswald turned back to Debbie.

“I need to talk to you about this threat you say is coming.”

“What do you want to know?” Debbie asked, then as her shoulder ached, she went over to the other side of the room, sitting down on soft chair as she gave a sigh, looking to a window where beyond, skies had darkened down and more rain was starting to fall. She didn't want to think about how vast that sky was – reminders of being far from home had become too painful.

“The android units are hard to destroy,” she said, looking back at Oswald, “With enough firepower, maybe three guys with machine gun and several hundred rounds might be able to destroy one if the firepower was concentrated – those things can't absorb more than one bullet at a time, they start to slow down the absorption process and the shell hardens, then they can shatter. But they can still reform. They can be frozen, then shot and I have gas cannisters that can do the rest, but they have to be immobilised first. I think Jim was right, I think you should get out of town and leave the fight to your people. You have an army, the androids will come as an army to match them. The whole city could be destroyed. You need to tell your detective friend he should think about a mass evacuation, people are going to die.”

“How long do we have?” Oswald said as his face paled.

“A day, maybe two, no more than that,” Debbie replied.

There was a rumble deep underground as in the hallway, a chandelier shook as crystal droplets chattered together and the house shuddered. It faded out quickly, but it was another reminder the quakes would not stop. Oswald turned sharply to Victor.

“Where is Fries?”

“Not been seen around since his last falling out with Firefly. I could send some guys out, see if they can locate him?”

Oswald shook his head.

“Not enough time... we need a plan...” then he started to smile as his brilliant mind found the answer, “We need some help with this. I know just where to go to get it, come with me, Victor. We have battle plans to draw up.”

 

As shadows fell to dusk, Debbie was back on the bed, resting as her shoulder slowly began to heal as the worst of the nagging pain faded out. Ed brought her some food and then left again. She ate, drank some tea and then went back to bed, it felt like the only safe place to be while the wound to her shoulder was still so raw. She had heard cars leave and return to the driveway outside, clearly Oswald was drawing up some kind of defence plan while he waited for the attack to arrive. Debbie slept deeply as the night sky darkened...

 

Jim was up late, a drink in his hand as he sat there watching the fire glow in the front room of the mansion. He had heard Oswald exchange sharp words with Ed that had been heated but brief as Ed had said, “Jim thinks this plan might not work? If it was up to Jim, you'd be out of town now, Oswald! Face it, he thinks you're too weak to take on a threat of this scale!”

“He's just concerned because the enemy is unknown to us!” Oswald said sharply, “I understand why he's trying to protect me!”

“So maybe you should leave town, with him. Don't come back until it's all over!”

Oswald's temper rose.

“You think I'm afraid?”

“Oswald, I don't care what you think, I care how this looks for us when it's over!” Ed said angrily, “I can see his doubts fucking everything up and you leaving Gotham until the battle's done with, then you lose the respect of the other gang leaders!”

Oswald's voice softened.

“I think you're just concerned for me.”

There was a pause. Ed's reply was bitter and cold.

“For you?” he laughed, “I'm concerned for your business interests Oswald, you're a business partner, that's all you'll ever be! My concerns are with the power and the money our investments generate. And then there's your reputation to think of! I won't be there to fight beside you when the time comes if you're ready to jump into Jim's waiting car and flee the city!”

“I would never do that!”

“Good,” Ed replied, “Because if you did, Penguin would lose all respect and that's when people start thinking about taking over territories. I think Jim should leave. He's a cop, he doesn't belong here.”

“No problem, I need to get back to organise my people any way,”

Oswald had been standing out in the hallway up close to Ed as he glared at him, but now as he turned to see Jim was leaving, there was a wounded look in his eyes.

“You don't have to go -”

“I should make sure my people are ready for this too,” Jim replied, “Call me when the trucks are ready, as soon as we know the location, your men can do their part and the GCPD will back you all the way,” he glanced at Ed, “I'll stop by tomorrow to finalise plans.”

“Jim wait -” said Oswald, but Jim was gone, closing the door behind him and walking away from the mansion.

“That's better, no cops in the house,” said Ed, “Now I think I should get get some rest, I could use an early night,” he flashed a bright smile, “Goodnight, Oswald.”

As Ed went up the stairs without a backwards glance, as Oswald stood there on the ground floor, alone in the warmth of the soft cosy lighting that lit his home as he reflected on the fact that he was very much alone in this big house made for a family, all because of Ed... _Why did Ed have to be so cruel?_ There had been times when the two of them had got so close, almost lovers - more than friends, but Ed always pulled back and reminded him he was here for money. He was in it for the business deals and the criminal plans and power. Oswald was the most powerful crime boss in Gotham, but in that moment, he felt powerless to have the one thing he wanted – Ed's affection. It hadn't always been that way. He had feelings for another, and those feelings still remained tucked safely away in a corner of his heart, but it seemed he was destined for rejection by every single person he fell for. _Including Jim Gordon_. And Ed had just made Jim leave, talking loud enough to let him hear _exactly_ what he thought of his opinions... Oswald blinked away tears. Loneliness had never felt so painful. He began to make his way up the stairs, he was planning on locking himself in his room, taking a few more drinks, enough to take the edge off the sting to his heartache and then sleep until morning – when maybe, he would have to face what ever was coming to destroy him – if tomorrow was the day it would happen...

 

Oswald reached the top of the stairs and began to limp slowly towards his bedroom. His heart was aching for old yearnings never fulfilled, and that was all about Jim Gordon. Ed was someone who seemed to love being around him, working beside him, reminding them they made a great team – there had been times when his hopes had risen, a hug that lasted too long, a touch of his hand, a tender moment with an embrace and soft reassurance in his ear that he loved him as a friend... but if Ed felt more for him, he didn't say it aloud and he guessed he never would. Maybe he was here only for the money and the power...but he wished he had not reminded him of that. There had been a time when he had hoped, _If me and Ed can make it work, we would have a wonderful life together and maybe, just maybe, I could forget how much I'll always ache for Jim Gordon..._

But he was all alone and Oswald felt that sharply as he made his way towards the master bedroom. He passed Debbie's door, it was ajar and as she caught sight of him limping stiffly past, she sat up and said his name. Oswald stopped, turned back and pushed open the door to the guest room where Debbie was on top of the covers, fully clothed and looking much better for the rest now Ed had fixed her shoulder. She had only the lamp next to the bed switched on, casting a dim glow about the room. She noticed Oswald looked tearful, and beckoned to him.

“Come in, I want to talk to you,” she said.

Oswald had no clue why Debbie needed to talk to him at this late hour, but she was company – something he needed after Jim leaving and Ed speaking to him so harshly. He went into the room, closed the door and limped over to the bed.

“Yes, Debbie?” he asked, looking down at her as she sat there on top of the covers and he looked back at her making a good job of pretending he really didn't have time for idle chat.

“You look awful,” she said softly, “Like you've been crying your heart out on the inside for years and tonight the tears started to show. Do you want to go off to your room and lock the door and cry into your pillow, or would you like to stay up and have a drink with me?”

Oswald stared at her, feeling caught out that she had read him so well at a glance. She poured herself a drink, then slid a second glass closer to the edge of the bedside table and there was a clink of bottle against glass as whiskey filled it.

“Want to sit down?” she asked, “And don't pretend you're just fine. My son says that when he's upset and five minutes later I find him crying on the phone because his girlfriend won't reply to his messages.”

Oswald sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for the glass, pausing to cast her a frosty look.

“I certainly don't have teenage issues at my age!” he told her frostily.

Debbie smiled.

“I'm not saying that, Oswald. I'm just saying, I notice things. Now tell me what's wrong.”

Oswald took a sip of his drink and looked at Debbie. No one else was around and the door was closed and she wasn't even from this reality. Knowing all of those things made it easy to start talking. Oswald told her everything...

 

It was two am by the time he had finished pouring his heart out, talking of the past and the death of his mother and all the other losses life had sent his way to break his heart. He found his success and power to be a bittersweet victory, it seemed loneliness was the price to pay after having such bad luck in love. Oswald carried so much grief and the pain of more than one loss. He had mentioned he had loved Ed, who rejected him, Sofia who had betrayed him, then he had there was one other, a love whose name would always be in his heart – a man who he had adored from afar for many years, who he believed did not feel the same way. Debbie had told Oswald all about her failed marriage and raising the kids alone. Then she had thought about the look she had seen in the eyes of his cop friend, such deep concern for his welfare as he suggested that Oswald leave town, and she had asked a question.

“This guy you care for, is it Jim Gordon? Because I saw deep fear in his eyes when he realised how much danger you could be in. He didn't want you to leave town as just a practical precaution – he was scared for you, really scared. _I think he cares more than you know._ ”

Oswald had been on his third drink. He set it down and looked at her sharply as his face flushed.

“I didn't say it was Jim, maybe you should keep your theories to yourself!”

He had spoken so defensively, then he looked to the window and the night sky as the wind howled and rain hit the glass pane as he blinked back tears.

“None of that matters now. If this army you speak of turns up tomorrow, we could all be dead, including Jim. All of my struggles in life will have been for nothing. I didn't have plans to die this way and I'm very sure this is not how my life is meant to end, not after how far I've come!”

“These droids can be stopped,” Debbie reminded him, “And from what you've told me, you stand a good chance of defeating them.”

“And what then?” Oswald said to her, looking at her intently as he recalled they were following her on her mission through the realities, “What happens when we destroy them, do we wait around for more to show up?”

“No,” Debbie replied, “Once this is over, I'm leaving and the enemy will detect my trace in the transfer process and send more to hunt me and the next Penguin once I've crossed into another reality. There's going to be a huge battle here in your world, but when it's over, they will never return. I could leave now, carry on with my search. But I'd be leaving you to fight the droids without my tech to add to the mix - and that could put your people at a disadvantage. I realise you don't have the key. If the next man called Penguin doesn't have it either, I have to go on to Zone 4 and do whatever it takes to retrieve that key.”

“And if you don't find it?” Oswald asked in a hushed voice, “What does that mean for your world and mine?”

Debbie shook her head. She couldn't think of the worst outcome without thinking of her children and fearing for their safety.

“It's the end,” she said as she blinked back tears, “Everything ends. They never should have sent me on this mission, they must know I'm not up to the job. I'm sure there's corruption at Infinite Vision. I think the rival company has someone on the inside, they want to take over control of the machine and they're doing it by discrediting Infinite Vision by making sure this mission fails, then they'll send in their own operatives to locate the key... people more skilled than me, younger and in better shape. People who can succeed.”

Oswald had been moved by her words as he saw such fear of failure in her eyes. He turned to her, placing his hand over hers as he looked intently at her and spoke quietly as he echoed a truth that came form his own heart and from years of experience fighting his way to the top in this dark and corrupt city.

“I remember Mother always used to tell me some day I would be someone in this city,” Oswald said, “And she was right. I am the king of Gotham. I rule the underworld. And it's come at a price, I am always alone,” he forced a smile to mask his pain, “But nothing has stopped me, Debbie. Not even the fact that I can't walk without a cane. If you want something bad enough, you can achieve it. I don't doubt you'll find that key and go back ready for a confrontation. You can't hand it over to those who would use it risking the destruction of other realities.”

“I'll try to stop that from happening,” Debbie replied, “But I just don't know if I'll get through this.”

“Who knows if any of us will get through, when that army shows up,” Oswald replied and Debbie leaned closer, drawing him into her arms as he sat beside her on the edge of the bed, and as Oswald hesitated, then responded to her hug by wrapping his arms around her and briefly holding her, he was silently thankful for the company, the reassurance, the closeness of another. As he drew back, their lips were almost touching as he looked into her eyes and they both sensed something pass between them, a spark of attraction, a need for comfort, and this embrace was enough to remind them both they were not alone tonight. As his gaze locked with hers, his arms were still around her shoulders and Oswald saw a need reflected in his eyes that matched his own. Neither of them wanted to be alone tonight, and here they were, embracing...

“You are rather pretty for -”

“For an older woman?” she said with a chuckle, “Well, I'm the _only_ woman here, and you're the only company I have tonight too. I guess we're stuck with each other!”

“And I'm not complaining, my dear,” Oswald said as he smiled and the shade of sadness that had darkened his gaze lifted, then he paused, stiffening in her embrace as nervousness got the better of him. For Gotham's crime king, he was a very shy person indeed, but as Debbie leaned in, pulling him close as their lips touched, he held her tighter, his hand sliding over her shoulders, taking care not to touch the wound beneath the dressing as his kiss grew deeper.

Debbie closed her eyes, taken over by the unexpected dominance of the man who held her in his arms. Oswald got on the bed, grabbing at his damaged leg as he pulled it up to the softness of the mattress, his ankle hit the covers with thump and she felt him stiffen for a moment as he turned on his side, shifting quickly to alleviate the pain, but he was still holding her closely, now he was pressing against her and as he broke off from their kiss, his eyes were dark with desire, his pupils blown wide and black as he breathed harder. He reached down in a quick, impatient movement, fumbling with his belt, then tugging at his zip as he freed his erection as they lay side by side, on the bed in the glow of the lamp light.

“Would you please -”

She kissed him, cutting off his words as he caught his breath, overwhelmed by his own sudden arousal as he gripped his cock firmly, trying not to lose control. It had been many lonely years since he had enjoyed a liaison with anyone... Debbie ran her fingers through his spiked hair, kissing his brow as he broke into a light sweat.

“ _You want me to suck your cock, Oswald?”_

He closed his eyes, breathing out hard as his lips parted and he leaned back hard against the pillow as he turned on his back.

“ _Yes please!”_

Debbie slid down the bed, taking care not to lean against his damaged leg as Oswald tugged on his clothing, exposing his lower body, then he slid his fingers into her hair, gripping gently, and as she wrapped her hand around his long, thick, solid cock, she looked up at him as he gave a sigh and in that moment, Oswald looked beautiful as he lay there, waiting for release. She gently slid her grip up and down his rock solid length, then as the shiny head leaked already and he gave a moan, she realised it wasn't often Gotham's crime lord indulged in such activities, he was close to the edge already. Debbie took him in her mouth, gently sucking, taking him all the way down to the back of her throat. Oswald was well endowed. _Were all Penguins in all universes so blessed?_ She couldn't help that thought that had run through her mind as the taste of him filled her mouth. The way his hips thrust up and his body trembled as he gave a soft moan of pleasure was all she needed to feel a thrill shudder though her own body at the thought of how the crime lord of Gotham was becoming a shaking mess on the bed, as she sucked on his cock.

“ _Harder... Debbie, go much harder!”_ he gasped, tightening his grip on her hair as he thrust up against her lips. His cock hit the back of her throat and she pulled back, sliding her mouth up his wet shaft as she caressed the head with her tongue in gentle, circular strokes.

“ _Debbie!_ ” he hissed through gritted teeth _“Suck me off! Hurry, do it now...I'm_ _coming...”_

One hand gently cupped his balls, gripping lightly as the other closed about the base of his generous cock as she took him in her mouth again, sucking firmly. Oswald gave a sharp cry, then panted and trembled as he spurted hot and fast in her mouth. She sucked and swallowed, then swallowed again as another throb and a burst of spicy come filled her mouth for a second time. Oswald was panting, still recovering as she released him and then joined him again, brushing hair damp with perspiration from his brow as he opened his eyes and looked up at her.

“That was nice,” he said, “Thank you.”

He reached down, tugging on his clothing, adjusting it and fastening his belt once more, then he turned on his side and put his arm around her as he looked into her eyes.

“I won't beg you to stay because I know you have your plans and you can't change them.”

Debbie's gaze softened to fondness as she looked into the eyes of Oswald Cobblepot, a powerful, attractive man whose crippled leg had not stopped him rising to underworld glory, the most powerful man in Gotham – and right now, also the loneliest.

“You're right about that,” she replied, “And I know you're not in love with me. And I really do think Jim cares more than you realise. Maybe you should ask him about it.”

“I doubt there would be any point,” Oswald replied, pushing to push his damp hair off his face and back up into messy spikes as he lay there on his back, still in the afterglow of an intense orgasm as he held he close, “He's never been more than a friend. I tried, a long time ago, I invited him to my club and he turned me down, I think he knew I was attempting get closer but he didn't want to know at the time. He's had more than one woman in his life in recent years. I heard a rumour Jim may have dated guys before I knew him, but I've never asked if it was true. Even if he is bisexual, he's never indicated interest in me, not in that way.”

“But he's a cop and you're the king of the underworld,” Debbie replied, “I'm guessing that could be the reason why.”

Oswald blinked, turning his head as he looked at her.

“If that is the _only_ reason, perhaps.....” he paused for thought, and suddenly she saw hope light up his gaze, “If we can fight off this coming threat together, that would show the whole city the cops and the underworld could work together! It might also make Jim realised that being on different sides of the law doesn't have to stop us from getting closer. This could actually work!” He smiled, and now there was no trace of sorrow left in his gaze as he thought about a future where the underworld and the cops could work together, it was certainly a way forward, bridging a divide between both sides, and if he and Jim could make it work together, Gotham would be unified, stronger in every way...

“This could work for more than just me and Jim,” he said to her, “This could change the future of the city! A lot is resting on the battle, when the droids arrive.”

Debbie smiled too, then she held him closer as her smile faded as Oswald rested his head on her shoulder, closing his eyes as he drifted into a deep sleep. She was starting to worry, and not just about finding that key... She had the creeping suspicion that she had already broken several rules that were in place for a good reason:

Those who travelled between realities where timelines and time itself ran differently, knew that if visiting a zone where the future was already known, it was not supposed to be revealed to those yet to live it out. She had already warned the Penguin man with the flipper hands not to follow on with his plans to take over the city, because it would end with his death. _Had she changed his fate?_ She had no way of knowing. Now she had just told Oswald to try and attempt to get closer to Jim, she knew in his original timeline he had spent his life hoping that Ed would get closer, and it had never happened and he had lived alone for the rest of his days. Jim Gordon had become an enemy after the city war. But now, Oswald was hoping to get closer to him, to fight side by side with the GCPD when the droids arrived, hoping this would not only save the city but forever cement the bond between the underworld and law enforcement forever. If that happened, Jim and Oswald might stand a chance of making a future together – and if they did, what then, when the city war came in a few years time? _What would that mean for the future of Gotham?_ She already felt something, stirring deep in her bones that seemed to suggest all she had told both Penguins had changed something in both realities. But she didn't know what, and wouldn't know until she returned to her own time and place, only then would she discover if the timelines had altered in any way...

_Had she changed their fates?_

As she lay there with Oswald beside her, she studied his sleeping face made soft by the lamplight. He was an attractive man, yet her heart was tugging back towards that cavern beneath a zoo in a Gotham where it was winter and the short, round man with flipper hands had lived isolated from the world above all his life, she recalled looking into his dark eyes and the sound of his gruff voice that could easily slide to softness. She remembered the surprise on his face then the look of vulnerable shyness as she had pleasured him, no one else had ever been intimate with him, he had never known closeness or affection. He thought of himself as an outcast and a freak, this was all because of the way he had been rejected at birth, thrown away like trash, there was a soul inside that deformed, unusual man's body and it was a soul that just needed coaxing to shine as it should. He just needed love.

_And she could never see him again._

_She ached deeply as she remembered her task – to find the key – came first._

_No matter how she longed to return to the other reality, it could not happen..._

That thought kept her awake for a long time as she lay there in the dark and Oswald slept deeply as the scent of his cologne filled the air as he rested beside her, still in his suit. Debbie put her arm around him, holding him close as she finally closed her eyes, hoping tomorrow would not bring disaster. There was an invasion coming, and she didn't know if any of them would even survive, let alone live long enough to have a future...

 

Morning arrived and Debbie found herself alone. The door was ajar and she looked out but saw no one about. The house was silent. Then a door closed downstairs and she heard Jim's voice carry up the stairway as he said his men were ready when the call came through, everyone was on standby, Oswald then spoke up to confirm the trucks were ready too. All they needed now was a location. Debbie got up and stiffly put her boots on, shaking her head as her aching back pained her, another reminder that she was in no shape for this job. Two zones had been crossed and still no key and everywhere she went, those droids followed after her, bringing the risk of death and destruction in their wake...

Her shoulder felt much better, Ed had done a good job to patch her up. She didn't doubt there would be more injuries once the shots started firing, and if she was hit again, when it was over, she would have to leave bleeding because she had to move on, for the sake of everyone around her. Oswald had an army. He also had a genius plan. It would work once, but she couldn't risk staying around to see him and his people fight off a second attack. She put on her jacket, holstered her weapons, lifted the blaster and now it didn't feel so heavy. She left the bedroom and walked out into the hallway, looking left and right as she wondered where the little Penguin boy had come from, and where he had gone to when he vanished out of sight along with a man who looked like the Penguin with the flipper hands. It made no sense. Penguin didn't have the means to cross between realities... There had to be an explanation and she was sure she could discover it, eventually. But today, she had to focus on the coming threat. The world was bright and lit with sun that morning, the clouds and the rain had dispersed. It seemed like a very ordinary day, perhaps too ordinary...

 

She found Oswald, Ed and Jim having breakfast in the dining room. They were discussing plans and when she walked in, she greeted Oswald with a smile but he gave a her a polite nod and carried on taking. Their encounter last night had been packed away somewhere at the back of his mind with memories he held dear, and now, it was all about business again, protecting his interests, and running over the plans to thwart the coming attack once more. She sat down at the table. Victor came in the room and joined them, watching as she set the blaster carefully on the floor beside her chair. He placed a bacon sandwich in front of her and then he reached for the tea and poured her a cup, then sat beside her.

“You must be very well trained,” he said, lowering his voice as he turned to her with interest as the others talked on about the battle plans, “To handle such complicated weaponry.”

“I was trained many years ago,” she replied, “I almost forgot how to use the blaster the first time in the other zone – it's been years!”

“And that blaster can immobilise these things?”

“Up to fifty at a time,” she replied, the Eclipse gas does the rest.”

Victor looked at her intently, then he smiled a quirky smile as his eyes registered interest.

“You're a _very_ fascinating person, coming out of retirement after having three kids, being out of the security business so long, volunteering for this job...You must be tough, I find that attractive. Maybe we could talk more, later, after the trouble is over?”

Debbie smiled.

“I'm in my forties, out of shape, I can barely run and every time I have to hit the ground to dodge enemy fire, I run the risk of my back going crack _very_ painfully.”

“Even so, you have a _certain something_ ,” Victor added.

Debbie rolled her eyes.

“I'm too old to fall for that. It's my blaster isn't it, Victor? You have your eye on my blaster.”

Victor shrugged, knowing he was caught out.

“Yeah okay, it's your blaster,” he replied, “But _is_ an awesome weapon.”

“And you'd just like to try it out once?”

“If you don't mind!”

“ _No.”_

“Okay,” Victor replied, reaching for his tea, “It was worth a try...”

 

After breakfast, Victor left to take care of the business of ensuring all the plans were in place and ready for quick execution when the time arrived. Oswald limped out of the room, accompanying him as they talked in low voices that faded out as they headed up the hallway towards the front door.

Ed got up and began to clear the table, then he left the room. Jim checked his watch.

“I should be back with my people at the GCPD in around an hour,” he told her, “They have to be on standby too. If those things show up in the city I want the affected area evacuated. We have to reduce the risk of casualties.”

“ _There's a war coming.”_

As Debbie made that statement, he looked across the table at her, recalling the warning Oswald had once given him.

“You mean the droids, when they attack?”

She had already done too much to give out information that could change the course of history. It seemed pointless to stop now...

“I'm not talking about that,” she replied, “There's a war coming to Gotham City a year from now. The criminals will rise up and blow the bridges and Gotham will be a war Zone. You and Oswald will be on opposing sides and end up becoming deadly enemies. Don't do that. Change it while you still can, fight along side him when the droids attack, show the city the cops and the underworld can work together. Then there's nothing stopping you.”

She got up from the table.

“Stopping me from doing what?” Jim asked.

“ _From being with Oswald, because you love him,”_ she replied.

As surprise registered in Jim's wide eyes, she knew she had been right about how he really felt about his criminal friend. Jim stared after her, too stunned to speak as Debbie headed for the door that opened into the garden, where she stepped out alone, taking in fresh morning air as she wondered how much longer she would have to wait before this quiet world descended into hell. It was so peaceful that morning, too peaceful. _It felt like a dark omen._ _There was always calm before the breaking of a terrible storm..._

 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

 

“ _Debbie.”_

She heard Jim say her name as she stood in the peace and stillness of the garden looking tranquil under the morning sun, and she turned to see he had joined her at the edge of the lawn, as he regarded her thoughtfully.

“This place you're from – is it very different to our Gotham?”

“In some ways,” she replied, “We have advanced tech. You won't have that kind of tech for another thirty years... _Oh, shit_....” She had caught the look in his eyes, a spark of realisation. She had just broken another rule...

“How much do you know about the future of this reality?” he stepped closer, closing his hand about her arm as she glanced down at it, then shot him a warning look. He let go, but desperation still burned in his gaze.

“How far into our future can you see?” he demanded.

She shook her head. None of it was pleasant to relate...

“There's a war coming to Gotham. Ten years on, you and Oswald will be enemies, he's going to be alone and so will you.”

“Ed's not the one for him?”

“No, he's not,” Debbie confirmed, “You loved him enough to come back early this morning after Ed drove you out yesterday. You couldn't stay away from Oswald if you tried. So yes, going by that look in your eyes I'd say _maybe_ you should try and change the future.”

“But you didn't know the droid attack would be coming?”

“That wasn't a part of your timeline until the key was stolen,” Debbie told him, “That part of your city history is about to be rewritten.”

As terrible as the lurking danger was, Jim still smiled as hope shone in his eyes.

“You're saying the future can be changed? I mean, this is proof of it, you're here, we're about to face a huge threat that didn't happen in the first timeline... Things can be changed?”

“Maybe?” Debbie guessed, “I don't know for sure. I haven't worked a security job for twenty five years. I don't have it in me to take on an army, I came up against a small invasion in Zone One and got shot with a tracking device and almost bled to death! I'm nobody's saviour. I'm just an idiot who took a job because the money was good... I was lied to and now I'm in the shit. I hope the future can be changed, but don't hold me to that, because I'm no expert on anything.”

There was a new fire burning in Jim's eyes.

“That's good enough for me,” he said, and he turned away and hurried back inside.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To find Oswald!” he called back, and she hurried after him back into the house.

 

Debbie caught up with Jim as he yelled his name a third time, but got no reply.

“Check upstairs,” he said, “Tell him I need to speak to him urgently.”

“What's this about?” she asked.

There was a flicker of a smile about Jim's lips as he gave his reply.

“I'm taking your advice.”

Just then the door opened. Outside, Victor was busy loading up a car with guns and ammo. Ed had just strolled in through the open door as Oswald followed, leaning on his cane. Ed caught the urgent look in Jim's eyes and cast him a frosty glance.

“If you've changed your mind, forget it!” he said sharply, “Oswald is staying here to fight – we've made our plans!”

“Out of my way, Nygma,” he said dismissively, shoving past him as Ed turned and stared at Jim, who had just set his sights on Oswald and was heading towards the open door.

“What the hell is going on?” Ed demanded.

“Nothing that concerns you,” Debbie assured him, “Ed, you might want to leave them to it.”

Ed looked utterly confused.

“Leave them to what?” he asked.

He didn't need to wait for that question to be answered. Jim met with Oswald as he entered the house, he took one look at him as he leaned on his cane, limping in through that door and years of heartache ended in a second as he met him there, and Oswald looked startled as Jim stood in front of him, placing his hands gently on his shoulders.

“I don't know what the future holds, or how bad this fight will get when those machines turn up,” said Jim, “But I do know I've wasted too much time. I'll never hold back again,” now there were tears in his eyes, “I love you, Oswald,” he said as his voice choked with emotion, then he pulled him into his arms and as Oswald opened his mouth to speak, Jim kissed him.

Oswald briefly tensed, then he clung tightly to Jim, as his cane fell to the floor with a clatter and Jim instinctively slipped an arm about his waist, supporting him as he held him and their kiss deepened. Ed was staring, wondering why Jim had suddenly decided to declare his love after all this time... until now, he had no clue the two of them had been holding back, he didn't know either of them had feelings for one another, but clearly they did, because that kiss was still going strong...

Oswald's face was flushed and he was slightly breathless as Jim drew back. Debbie had walked away towards the front room, giving the two of them the space and privacy they needed as Ed stammered something about needing to go over their plans for the battle, and then he hurried off too, leaving Jim and Oswald alone in the hallway, still embracing. Oswald's eyes filled with tears of joy as he started to smile.

“I'm not dreaming?”

“Definitely not!” Jim said as he smiled too, “We've wasted too much time, Oswald. There's no reason why we can't be together, a cop and an underworld boss. We're going to fight side by side and show this city we can join forces and make a great team. And when it's over, our life together begins. I'll never hold back again.”

Joy shone in Oswald's eyes as Jim stood there, still with his arms wrapped around him.

“I guess this changes everything!” Oswald said with a radiant smile.

“It certainly does,” Jim agreed.

He pulled him close for another kiss, sealing that promise as Oswald clung to him tightly and his heart pounded, reminding him this was real, this was not a dream. In a split second everything had changed, in a wonderful way, so wonderful that all else had paled into insignificance.

 

Ed was standing by the fireplace looking thoughtfully towards the window, reflecting on what had just happened.

“A cop,” he murmured, “Who would have thought Oswald would have chosen a cop?”

“Jim's on your side,” Debbie reminded him as she stood by the open door and the fresh air came in, “If the GCPD and the underworld can stand together at a time when it really matters, that will make a difference to how the city views a cop and a criminal in a close relationship. They're going to show this city what they can do. It's going to change a lot for the better.”

Ed turned to face her as anger blazed in his eyes.

“And what about _my_ partnership with Oswald?”

“Business will still be business, Ed,” she reminded him, then the felt a flicker of pain in her shoulder.

“I think the dressing needs changing. I'm hurting again and it just felt wet.”

Ed gave a weary sigh.

“Follow me,” he said, and led her from the room and towards the stairs.

On the way, he paused to glance towards the open door. Jim and Oswald were still standing there embracing, so wrapped up in their new love for each other, they didn't even notice him pass by. He hoped Debbie was right and business would still be business, he wasn't prepared to be pushed out of a lucrative partnership because Jim had finally decided to make a move on Oswald...

 

Debbie took off her jacket and bared her shoulder as she sat on the bed in the guest room and Ed fetched a medical kit and then took off the dressing. The wound felt cold and it stung as the air hit it, then he cleaned it up and started to cover it again.

“It is deep,” he reminded her, “It will take a while to heal. You should really be resting.”

“That's not possible,” Debbie replied, “I'd rather be at home, watering my plants or nagging one of my kids to clean up or wash the car. That's where I should be – not here. I don't even know if I'll live to see home again.”

“I sincerely hope you do,” Ed replied as he finished covering the wound, “Or what hope is there for the rest of us?” he laughed nervously.

“I hope I do too,” she replied as she got up and put on her jacket then reached for her blaster, “Purely because I care about seeing my kids again.”

Then she reached for the handle to open up the door and the house trembled and for a split second she glanced back at Ed, who stood there looking back at her, assuming this was another minor earth tremor. Then the sky briefly blackened, an electric blue flash cut through the skies, and every window in the mansion shattered...

 

Victor was about to get in his car when the light dimmed and returned with a blue flash that shook the ground and shattered the windows. He dived for cover behind his vehicle and drew his guns, slowly rising with his sights set on the enemy as silver forms emerged from the shadows and the last of the shade lifted. His eyes widened. They were everywhere, and their silver bodies shone fluid in the daylight as they twisted and turned at lightning speed, their forms becoming human in shape as they prepared to invade, closing in on the house.

Victor ducked and rolled as a shot sailed past him, then he fired off both guns as silver bodies were punctured and briefly froze as their liquid forms sucked in the lead. He ran for the house, pistol whipping a droid in his path, and was promptly flung to the ground on his back as the droids arm wrapped around the gun, melting it to its body. As it leaned in close, Victor let go of the trapped gun and grabbed the other with both hands, firing off shot after shot as the creature's head split in two - and still it was looming over him as the divided metal began to rejoin. He rolled from beneath its shadow, shot at two more creatures and headed for the open door of the mansion where glass littered the hallway.

 

Inside the house, the shock wave that had shattered the windows had knocked Oswald and Jim to the floor as they were showered with glass fragments. Jim had got up first, seen the coming invasion and grabbed Oswald, who clung heavily to him as they made their way down the hallway. Both men were covered glass shards, fragments were in Oswald's hair and over Jim's jacket, both had cuts and scratches from the blast and as they made it to a locked door, the back of Oswald's hand was bleeding as he frantically searched through a large set of keys.

“I have more weapons in here...” he said quickly, glancing back as Victor dashed in, turned back and stared to fire.

“I'll cover you!” Jim told him.

As Oswald tried the key, Jim turned back, joining Victor as they fired off shots, then ducked as the creatures fired back blowing chunks out of walls as return shots brought down plaster from the ceiling. Oswald bent low as more shots fired over his head, slamming into woodwork and shattering it to splinters. The door would not open. _Wrong key_. His hand shook as he tried another key as close by, Victor and Jim's guns were firing off shot after shot in deafening blasts. Then something hot and burning cut through his suit and skimmed his hip and Oswald cried out and dropped the keys.

 

Upstairs, as the invasion closed in on the house, Debbie grabbed her blaster and ran from the room and out to the upper hall as Ed followed. His face paled as he looked over the balcony. Multiple gunshots were fired off and the lower hallway was crowded with those silver creatures now, they were closing in as Oswald yelled out, caught by enemy fire.

“ _Get the door open!”_ yelled Jim as he fired again.

“ _I'm trying!”_ Oswald yelled back, falling as pain throbbed at his hip and his weak leg slipped from beneath him. As he fell, Jim was still firing and Victor was backing up, down to one gun and running out of rounds.

Ed's hand trembled as he drew his gun and looked sharply at Debbie.

“The minute I start firing, they will fire at us too. And we have to help them, they're trapped down there!”

Debbie looked over the balcony. She drew in a tight breath.

“The blaster has to have the target in its sight. They're pushing too far in, I'll have to go down there and scan the area then hit as many as I can!”

Ed looked to the stairway. One of the silver creatures raised its featureless face, then it raised a weapon and fired as Ed ducked back around the corner, then fired back, hitting its chest as it stopped mid step on the bottom stair, pausing as the bullet was absorbed.

“ _Jim help me!”_ Oswald yelled downstairs, and Victor fired off more shots as Jim shouted back that he was almost out of ammo.

“We're surrounded!” Ed's voice was panicked as he looked at Debbie then to the balcony.

“We'll have to jump!”

“Shit no!” she said in horror, but Jim had just thrown his gun from somewhere beyond her view down on the ground floor and Victor was still holding off the enemy for now, and they were down to one gun...

Debbie closed her eyes as she remembered another balcony and another jump many years before, when she had been young and in good shape - and as her hands connected with the rail, she pushed herself up and over.

 _I can still do this_ , ran through her mind, and then she landed sharply and yelled out as the impact made her knees jar and her hips ache and worst of all, pain throbbed in her lower back. _Okay, so maybe I can't,_ she concluded, and she fell to her knees, raising the blaster as she hit the switch, anger blazing in her eyes as she saw all targets light up. They were looming over her, closing in on the new human who had just dropped into their sights. She slipped her finger to the trigger as she glared up at them, then she fired. A zigzag of lightning shot about the hallway as Jim dived over Oswald to cover him as Victor ducked down and Debbie hit the floor and the impact jarred her lower spine and sent a pain shooting down her left leg. The creatures were covered in a glowing mesh, and they exploded with a wet metallic burst, splattering walls and ceiling and debris from the shoot out as Debbie rolled for cover and thumped against Oswald and Jim as Oswald gave a cry of pain. Debbie couldn't move.

“Victor,” she said breathlessly, “The canisters... use two...” she summoned the strength to indicate to her belt, and he leaned over her, tore off two and fumbled with them and looked down at her.

“What do I do?”

Debbie leaned on Jim's shoulder as she pulled herself up, then her neck ached as she looked up at Victor and the aches shot all the way down her spine. The sound of the splattered fragments of liquid metal running down the walls ran audibly in time with the throb in her back and she drew in a breath and explained quickly.

“Twist them, deploy them...”

Victor followed her instruction, pitching the cannisters into the middle of silvery mess as it began to bubble and turn to sludge.

“Is it over? Jim asked as he got up and shook fragments of glass from his jacket.

“For now,” Debbie said, climbing to her knees as she put a hand to her back.

“Victor, fetch Oswald's cane, it's by the front door,” she added.

Jim was helping Oswald up from the floor, there was a small tear in his suit where a shot had glanced his hip and a small amount of blood had soaked through the fabric.

“Are you okay?” Jim's eyes were filled with fear as Oswald leaned against the wall, he was clearly in pain and he caught his breath as Jim pushed his jacket aside and inspected the wound with a sweep of his hand. Finally he breathed a relieved sigh.

“It's not serious, it barely caught you,” he assured him.

Oswald found his balance again, fury blazing in his eyes as he took in the wreckage that his home had become.

“Are all of those things dead now?”

“Yes,” Debbie said weakly, “But they will send more... _Thanks, Victor_.”

Victor looked down at her in surprise as she snatched Oswald's cane from his grip and leaned heavily on it as she pulled herself back to her feet.

“That's _my_ cane!” Oswald said stiffly.

“ _And I just fucked my back jumping from a balcony to save your ass!”_ Debbie told him sharply.

“He needs it more than you do!” Jim reminded her, stepping between them.

“And _I_ have sciatica!” Debbie declared loudly.

Just then Ed carefully stepped over piles of sludge as he made his way down the stairs, then surveyed the mess and put his gun away.

“Well, it looks like we got 'em!” he said, and smiled brightly.

Debbie glared at him.

“You said _we_ were going to jump!”

“We? Oh yes... well, there was a creature advancing and I had to hold it off the stairway until you deployed the weapon.”

Debbie limped closer to Ed as anger filled her eyes.

“Oswald's supposed to be a close friend? _YOU LEFT HIM!_ ”

“What was I supposed to do?” Ed demanded.

Debbie turned back to Jim and Oswald.

“They will send more. We need to get out of here, draw them to a large open space just like you planned, Oswald.”

Then Debbie looked to Victor.

“Before we leave, you'd better search this place from top to bottom.”

“What for?” he asked.

She glared at Ed.

“Because we need to find Ed's balls, he seems to have _lost_ them!”

Fury rose in Ed's eyes, but Oswald stepped in, snatching his cane back from Debbie.

“You're right, they could be on their way sooner than we think... We have to leave.”

Oswald leaned hard on his cane as he made for the door with Jim at his side. Victor was hurrying on ahead, as he mentioned they had the big guns in the trunk of the car. Debbie limped painfully to the door and looked back at Ed.

“This is going to get rough. Still want to come along?”

Ed took in a shaky breath.

“You're wrong about me. I wouldn't leave Oswald.”

“Really? I have my doubts about that!” she replied, and then she headed for the door, her boots crunching in glass fragments as the pain in her back throbbed and shot down her leg and she focused on her anger to make it outside and across the driveway to the waiting car. _Those silver bastards had fucked her back. Now, she was getting really mad at them..._

 

As Debbie got into the car she slumped heavy against the back seat, feeling every joint in her body ache from the impact of that jump. Oswald was making a call as he sat in the front passenger seat and Victor took the wheel. Jim was in the back also on the phone, liaising with his people, and as Ed got in the car he sat there stiffly, then glanced at the blaster that was now on the floor.

“As you're injured maybe I should take that weapon and -”

“ _No,”_ Debbie replied, and Victor glanced back at him.

“Don't even mention that gun,” he added, “She won't let anyone else use it!”

“Because I'm the only person here qualified to use it!” Debbie exclaimed, then the car pulled away and her whole spine ached with the motion of the vehicle as they pulled out of the driveway and headed for the open road.

 

As they travelled down the highway, the skies darkened as in the distance a flicker of blue lit up the shadows, then vanished again.

“We don't have much time!” Debbie said, nervously looking back, “You'd better hope your people can get this organised quickly!”

“It will be ready by the time we get there,” Oswald replied, shifting uncomfortably in his seat as his hip ached worse than his damaged leg.

“My people are on their way too,” Jim added.

Debbie looked down at the blaster on the floor. Her leg throbbed, her back felt like it had a hot knife stuck in it every time she moved. _How the hell could she help out again? She was done, she had nothing left to give, she would be a burden on these people..._

“I don't think I can do this again,” she said as she leaned back against the seat, “I can't fight.. _.that jump from the balcony has fucked me up!_ ” that angry statement had been aimed at Ed, who gave a shrug.

“I'm sure I can handle that weapon of yours if the need arises.”

Debbie closed her eyes, breathing out slowly as she tried to shift her mind above the pain.

“I can't leave the weapon here, not in your reality. You're not ready for this kind of tech! If I could leave it I would, but I have to take it with me!”

She drew in another breath, letting it out slowly. The pain was making her stomach churn. As she opened her eyes, there was another flicker that chased across the skies above the city.

“Victor...” said Oswald.

“I see it, Boss,” he replied, and sped up, taking the car towards a turn in the road that led into an old industrial estate on the edge of the city.

 

When they arrived at their destination cops and underworld men alike were ready and waiting, standing guard on rooftops and down below in a square in the middle of a block of old buildings. Here and there vehicles were parked, but anyone who had been hanging around for what ever reason, had now been driven out by the armed men. The car stopped nearby and Oswald got out first, followed by Jim who was quick to join him, pausing to put an arm around his shoulder as they stood beneath a large archway of brick where white paint was cracked and peeling, weathered by time just like the disused buildings beyond it.

“What ever happens today, I'm with you,” Jim vowed as he looked into Oswald's eyes.

“I know you are,” Oswald replied.

They were still looking at each other as Ed joined them.

“I won't let you down,” he said.

Jim indicated to a walkway on the building across the square.

“We'll join you up there,” he said, and Ed nodded and hurried off.

As Jim looked back at Oswald, he saw no trace of fear in his eyes even though the skies briefly darkened as the chasing flicker of blue edged closer.

“I love you, James Gordon,” Oswald said proudly, “And even if I die today, I'll die knowing we got there in the end, you and I.”

Jim's jaw briefly tightened as he tried to banish thoughts of the worst outcome.

“No one is dying today,” he reminded him, then Victor rejoined them, arming both men with machine guns. They exchanged a glance, then Oswald looked back at Debbie.

“I need you on the ground with Victor, he can help deploy the gas,” then he and Jim walked off together.

“Thanks a lot,” Debbie muttered, then she limped alongside Victor into the main square.

The skies darkened down. The flicker cut across it overhead and as it lifted, silver figures began to emerge, crowding into the open space.

“Run!” Victor said urgently, and he darted for cover on the other side of the square as Debbie hurried off, powering up the blaster as the pain in her back travelled, shooting down her leg.

“ _Fucking run!”_ she said bitterly, _“They told me no running...”_

As she sheltered beneath a doorway, she kept the weapon ready. There were too many of them, and shots were already ringing out as they set their sights on the humans and began the assault. She looked down at her screen, the blaster had picked up thirty plus. That wouldn't take out a third of them...

She hit the trigger and cut a swathe of tangerine fire through the army, covering them in red hot mesh. The others were still advancing. She looked up to the walkway. Oswald stood beside Jim, his open jacket blowing back in the wind as his spiked hair remained rigid as he checked his watch. Then two trucks thundered into the square as spray guns were aimed at the silver creatures. Debbie saw the silver bodies she had trapped explode, as the others carried on firing shots. _But they were truly fucked. Those trucks contained liquid nitrogen..._

“Oswald Cobblepot, you genius!” she said, then she ducked into the cover of the old building as the creatures were sprayed with a thick white mist and instantly froze solid.

Up on the walkway, Oswald aimed his weapon and Jim did the same and the trucks backed out.

“ _Fire all weapons now!”_ Jim yelled, and the square echoed with the deafening sound of round after round of machine gun fire as bullets punched into the frozen creatures and they shattered like glass. As the gunfire ceased, the last fragments of the last creature fell. Debbie deployed three cannisters, and as the mess turned to sludge, she limped across the square and deployed two more.

“Nice work,” Victor said, “And we didn't have to fire a single shot this time.”

Debbie breathed a heavy sigh, aching to her bones and pained by her back.

“Oswald took care of it,” she reminded him as she looked up to the walkway, where Jim and Oswald stood together.

“When you leave here today,” Jim announced, looking down at his people and Oswald's underworld men, “Be sure this event goes down in history. Tell the city how the Penguin and the GCPD destroyed a threat together – a threat that could have destroyed the whole of Gotham. From this day on, we work together to hold our city together. We won this fight, we will win many more!”

As cops and criminals alike cheered, Jim turned to Oswald, as they stood together high up on that walkway like kings looking down on their people.

“Now would be the best time to start as we mean to go on,” he said, leaning closer as he put his arms around Oswald. Surprise registered in his gaze.

“Here, at this moment?”

“Yes, Ozzie, here and now,” said Jim, and with shouts of victory still echoing about the place, Jim pulled him closer still. It was a moment that would define a new dawn in the history of Gotham City. It was the day cops and criminals had joined forces to extinguish the biggest threat to ever emerge in the city. It was also the day James Gordon took Oswald Cobblepot in his arms and kissed him passionately, cementing a bond that would never be broken, a bond that would some day change the outcome of future events in the city...

 

But the future was the last thing Debbie was thinking about as she limped out of the square, she ached to her bones and the phrase _I'm too old for this shit_ just didn't cover how she felt. Her spine felt cut in half. She was limping worse than Oswald, and she didn't even have a cane to lean on. She made it to the car and fell to her knees, just as Victor reached for her, pulled her back to her feet, opened up the car door and helped her slump inside.

“No Victor, I have to go!” she protested, “I can't stay here, they will send more, I have to leave this reality!”

Oswald and Jim had rejoined them, and Oswald got into the front and Jim got in the back. Ed paused to lean in the open window to speak to Oswald, saying he would stay behind and help the guys pack up the weaponry.

Then as the car pulled away, Debbie spoke up again.

“I can't stay here!”

“You're not going anywhere yet, you're hurt,” Jim told her as he sat beside her in the back of the car.

She felt exhausted as she leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes.

“My back is screwed. I feel like I've been slammed into a brick wall. And more of those creatures will show up if I stay, we have maybe two, three days and it will happen again.”

“You can manage one more night,” Jim replied, “You can't go anywhere yet. You need to rest.”

“I agree with Jim,” Oswald said, “One night will do no harm. You said these creatures are following you, so they will follow you when you leave. Perhaps it will take them longer this time, we just destroyed an army.”

“It will take longer,” she confirmed as she closed her eyes. The impact of the jump from the balcony was making every joint in her body throb. No position was comfortable, just being in her own skin with her painful bones beneath it was torture without respite. As the car drove onward, she gave into exhaustion, sliding into a deep sleep that freed her from pain as the journey continued back towards the mansion.

 

Later darkness fell, after the last of the glass had been cleared away downstairs, Debbie woke to the sound of a window being boarded up, then she drifted back to sleep again. She didn't recall getting out of the car, only that she had moved and her bones had felt painfully sore and her back had been the worst. But now she was resting, and when the broken window was boarded up, Victor left the lamp on and closed the bedroom door quietly, leaving Debbie to grab some much needed rest.

 

Further up the hallway, while Ed was downstairs having a stiff drink after what had been an unbelievable day, Oswald was upstairs in the master bedroom, the door was locked and behind that door he was on his back in bed, his hair still damp from the shower, the wound to his hip covered with a dressing and as Jim thrust deep inside him again, he dug his nails into his shoulders, clinging on as that final thrust hit deep and touched the right spot as his cock spilled cum quickly, making him gasp as he covered Jim's body and his own with a sticky hot mess of white heat. The orgasm was still fading out as Jim thrust again, harder and more firmly, managing to whisper _I love you, Oswald,_ before he lost all control and throbbed deep inside him.

As the last of his pleasure was spent, he separated from him and then as Oswald reached for him, he drew him into an embrace, kissing him as Oswald trembled and breathlessly told him he loved him too. Suddenly both men had tears of joy in their eyes, and certainly some of those tears were borne of regret for all the time they had spent apart when they could have been together sooner, and loved one another sooner.

“Everything changes now,” Jim said tenderly as he wiped a tear from Oswald's cheek and looked into his eyes, “You and me will last forever, we're going to build something unbreakable. And when this city is under control, when we have everything in good order here in Gotham, we can stop holding this city together and build something for us instead. I want you to marry me.”

Oswald's long eyelashes fluttered in surprise as he started to smile and he held him a little closer.

“If that was a proposal, I accept!”

Jim smiled, pausing to brush a lock of his dark hair from his brow as he looked into ice blue eyes that reflected the soul forever joined to his own.

“I hear in a few years scientific developments will make it possible for men to carry babies. When that happens I want you to have my children, Oswald. I want us to be a family.”

Oswald smiled as joy lit up his eyes and that look of absolute, complete happiness made Jim's heart fill with more love than he had ever thought it could hold.

“I love you so much, Oz.”

“I love you too, Jim,” Oswald whispered, looking into his eyes as he felt sure he had never known happiness like this could be possible, yet Jim was here, in his arms, and now they had a future to look forward to – he would never be alone again - Jim was here to stay and for Oswald, it felt like an unreachable dream had finally come true. Their futures had certainly been changed. Now they would always be together on the same side and not just as allies, but as husbands...

 

The house had fallen silent by midnight. Silent except for the sound of little shoes that quickly half ran, half waddled along the upper floor. The little boy with the bird-like face and flipper hands stopped abruptly by a door, then waited as Penguin followed, waddling along looking majestic in his fine suit and a long coat that wrapped elegantly about his short, round body. The little boy's flippers opened and closed quickly as he looked to a closed door and then back at Penguin.

“I want to see Ruby!” he said urgently.

“She's not here today,” Penguin reminded him, as his gruff voice softening as he looked down at him, “Not yet, remember?”

“I want my friend!” the tiny, round little boy looked up at him, wide eyes pleading.

“You can see her another time. I'm sorry, but not today.”

The boy nodded. Penguin smiled down at him.

“Wait there and be quiet,” he said.

The little boy watched, touching the tips of his flippers together as they silently opened and closed and he looked on as Penguin carefully opened up a nearby door. Inside, Debbie was in bed, sleeping deeply. Penguin waddled quietly over to her, leaned close and kissed her cheek. He paused to watch as she slept on, bones aching and back hurting from the battle she had faced that day.

“See you soon,” he whispered softly, then he drew back and turned around and left the room again, closing the door behind him.

“Time to leave,” he said, and the boy reached for his grasp as two flippers connected, one gloved and the smaller not, then they waddled off together down the hallway, vanishing like ghosts as behind the door, Debbie slept on, unaware of her secret visitors...

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers :-)  
> I'm sorry this update has taken a few days!  
> I usually update daily but... I am currently writing a new book (I now write 1-2 new original titles per year only) and I'm splitting my writing time between my new project and fan fiction. Nothing will stop me from writing fan fic, its my first love, it just means chapters might sometimes have a few days between updates! I will never, ever leave you waiting for long! Here is the next chapter. Enjoy! Love Davina :-) X

Chapter 6

 

Debbie woke to a peaceful morning, a contrast with the night before that made her feel thankful for the soft and comfortable bed, even though chilly morning air was escaping through a tiny gap where the broken window was boarded up. Ed came in and left breakfast and tea and some pills to ease the pain, and there was a lot of pain from the balcony jump and her injured back, every joint in her body still ached from the impact of that jump. The pills kicked in fast and a hot shower eased the rest, then she got dressed and stood alone in her room for a moment, thinking about Oswald and Jim.

When she left, she would miss those two amazing guys. She would never forget how they had taken down the enemy threat together, then embraced and shared a kiss to seal a union that would probably change a lot of the future of this city. There was still a war coming in this reality. But this time, they would not be enemies, and that had to make a huge difference to the outcome...

Debbie's heart ached as she thought about the heavy task placed in her hands to locate the key. She had visited two other realities and in both had found very different versions of Penguin, one had stolen her her heart despite his crude and filthy, flirty ways and the other was fondly in her heart as a friend - what had happened between them before Jim had declared his love was something she would always cherish, but this Penguin was her friend now and she didn't want to leave him. Both he and Jim had asked her to stay as long as it was safe to do so. She could easily linger here a few more hours...

_But she couldn't risk it._

If the next wave of droids came through because she had stayed around too long, she couldn't forgive herself, not after the battle these brave people had been through. She thought of Jim and the love she saw in his eyes when he looked at Oswald, then the radiant smile on Oswald's face as Jim had kissed him. The future had certainly been changed, she could only hope it would alter many things for the better.

_She wouldn't be around to find out._

_She had to leave, and when she did, she could never return._

Debbie blinked away tears.

_She would never see these people again..._

Now thoughts of the other Penguin ran through her head, thoughts of that lonely, short, round, flipper handed man who had never known love or affection. She had held him and felt something so pure pass between them. For all his crude remarks, the Penguin who lived beneath the ground back in the reality where winter had arrived was lonely and would stay alone, and he didn't have long left before he died in a pool of toxic water. Even if he took her advice and didn't carry out his plans, he wouldn't live much longer so close to such a poisonous substance, the black slime he had spat out was proof he was ready poisoned. It wasn't fatal yet - but eventually, if he stayed there long enough, it would be. Her heart ached sharply as she thought of him, then she pushed those thoughts aside, reminding herself she couldn't go back, she had to go onward. Her priority was finding the key, that was all that mattered. When she had taken this job, getting so attached to the people she met in other realities had not crossed her mind as a possibility. But both Penguins she had so far met had touched her heart in different ways, and it made leaving hard to do, but she had no choice in the matter...

Debbie put on her belt and holstered her guns and picked up the blaster, then she cast a glance about the room, wanting to remember every detail of this place. Oswald was a lucky guy. He had money and power a beautiful home and now the man he loved was at his side at last. In the eyes of the city he and Jim were heroes, too. That would _definitely_ have an impact on future events. But as for the other Penguin, her heart was still aching sharply.

“ _Stop it Debbie,”_ she murmured, _“You can't go back...”_

She left the bedroom and went out to the hallway, the lights were on because the windows were still boarded and no daylight escaped in. Someone was up, she could smell a trace of coffee and breakfast coming from down stairs. It wasn't Oswald or Jim, she heard laughter coming from the master bedroom, then Oswald spoke softly, saying, _I love you, Jim..._ Debbie smiled, feeling glad they had finally found their way to each other. Then her smile faded. She knew it was time to leave... Just then Victor came up the stairs and met her at the top, saw the look on her face and made a guess.

“You're leaving?”

“I have no choice,” she replied, “I have to find that key.”

Debbie paused for thought, feeling a real ache in her heart at the thought of leaving now, when Oswald and Jim, who had once been destined to become deadly rivals, had found a very new and different bond, a bond of deepest love. Gotham still faced a troubled future. She hoped they would get through it all, together...

“Take care of Oswald and Jim,” she said.

Victor smiled.

“I think those guys are more than capable of taking care of themselves,” he assured her.

“You're right about that,” Debbie agreed, “Bye, Victor.” Then she turned the dial to Zone Three and the world around her shimmered, and she vanished.

 

**ZONE 3: Batman (1966)**

 

As Debbie felt realities shift, she opened her eyes as looked about to see she was alone on a quiet road. In the distance, she saw a city that she guessed had to be Gotham – it was not the same as the version she had just left, this city seemed smaller by comparison, and the landscape had changed. Then a rumble sounded beneath her feet and as a crack snaked down the middle of the road, another mini quake rumbled deep, knocking her to the grass at the side of the road where the soft landing did nothing to ease the jolt of pain that ran down her back.

“ _Fuck it, not again!”_ she said angrily.

Then she heard a sharp crack, looked up and saw the quake had felled a tall tree, it was splitting low to the ground and falling in her direction. Debbie rolled and got to her knees, scrambling for nearby bushes as the tree fell with a crash as the ground shook again. The quakes were bad here. She had barley noticed them in Zone One, in Zone Two it had been more pronounced, but nothing too serious. Here they were becoming destructive – were the quakes growing progressively worse in each zone? If this was the case, Zone Four would be in for a major earthquake if she didn't find that key... She staggered to her feet. The ache coming back to her spine was the last of her worries as earth began to break away from a ridge above and chunks skittered downward as the shaking continued. Debbie hurried up the road side, holding her breath as she stepped over a small but deep crack in the earth, for now the tremors had finally stopped, but she didn't want to be out here alone while the ground was on the point of breaking up. She thought about the machine back in her own world that sat with its glowing channels exposed: Some other worlds were closer to the main root world than others. Three and Four were further out, obviously feeling the worst of the disruption as the system began to crumble... She hoped she would find the key here in this reality, because going on would be increasingly dangerous. If the machine failed before she got out, the outer realities could be destroyed, or drift out reach, never to be found again – she could be lost in an alternative universe with no hope of ever returning home...

There was another rumble as the earth shook. She was a long way from reaching the city, but this time, from where she stood, she could see the whole of the city had just been hit by the tremor, its image blurred with the rubble as it shook, then she saw a tall building buckle and lean to a precarious angle, debris began to fall as down below the hillside, cars slammed into one another, wrecks crunching together. Until now the road had been at a stand still, then the vehicles had started moving again, in a panic, trying to head into the city, the only place of presumed safety. People here were clearly not used to earthquakes, that minor scare had just turned major in a disastrous way. _The quake stopped._ There would be after shocks, and she knew the city would be a very dangerous place to take shelter with so many buildings at risk. But she had to find the key...

“ _That's all I need,”_ she muttered, making her way along a roadside littered with chunks of fallen earth as she headed towards the route that led into the city, _“No droids yet, just a natural fucking disaster, never mind fending off the enemy, can my back take climbing over debris to get to my destination?”_ she looked to the city as her thoughts turned back to home and Infinite Vision,

“ _You definitely expected me to fail,”_ she said darkly as anger burned in her gaze, _“And when I get back, someone's gonna pay for this. No one puts me in the shit and gets away with it!”_

She heard a screech of tires on road surface. It was the first vehicle she had heard on this deserted road since arriving. Debbie stepped over a thin, deep crack in the ground that snaked half way across the road and partly crossed the empty highway, standing in the middle of the road as she waved frantically at the oncoming vehicle. It rushed towards her in a dark blur, only slowing a fraction to weave around the cracked road surface, then it came straight at her. Debbie dived out of its path, landing hard on her side, ignoring the pain in her lower back that had now returned to haunt her as anger took over.

“ _You fucker!”_ she yelled, and whipped a gun from its holster and took aim, the laser blast hit the back window of the car and glass shattered.

Debbie smiled as her eyes lit up with joy.

“ _Oh wow I've still got it! What a shot!”_

She blew the tip of her weapon, still smiling as memories of the good old days flooded back to her, then she holstered her pistol. And the smile vanished from her face as the car stopped sharply and began to reverse towards her at speed.

“ _Oh shit!”_ she said, staggering back and reaching for her pistol once more. She raised it as the car came to a sharp stop with a screech of wheels jarring on road surface, and then she looked down at the energy chamber.

“ _Flat?”_ she exclaimed, giving it a shake, “What the hell...”

She holstered it and tried her other weapon. _Nope. No luck there either..._

“ _You idiot...”_ she muttered, remembering these laser pistols were solar powered and she hadn't left them on recharge since her mission had started, they were about as much use as water pistols right now...

She put the pistol away and looked down at her blaster. She really didn't want to _ever_ have to use that thing on people. She had no problem killing the droids, but if she blasted living human beings with that thing, even the stun level would be horrifically painful. _Yes, she wanted to save the world, and would do what ever it took - but she had standards, too..._

Armed men got out of the car. They didn't look too threatening, they certainly didn't look excessively rough and tough either, they were dressed in black and wore eye masks and she was sure she could take them on if she had to – if only she was a few years younger, a little lighter, in better shape and her back wasn't throbbing again... She gripped the blaster, holding it steady as the men who had left the vehicle hesitated, lowering their guns, recognising this new and strange weapon was bigger and most likely more powerful than their ordinary handguns.

“I'm sorry about your car,” she said, holding her aim steady, “And I realise your city is in the middle of a crisis, but I know why these shocks are happening. My name is Debbie Flint. I'm here to retrieve a key, to take it back to place that's a lot like this, but different. There's a machine there called a reality splitter and the key is missing. If I don't find it, these quakes will be the least of your worries. Now give me a ride into the city, I have to find the Penguin!”

Just then the passenger door opened and a man got out, stepping over fragments of shattered glass as he made his way towards her. His way of walking was not a waddle and not a limp, but he certainly wasn't walking effortlessly. He wore a black suit with a white shirt and a purple bow tie and matching top hat. His nose was long and pointed and... she recognised him at once. _This was another Penguin! She had found him without even needing to look..._

“You're The Penguin?” she asked.

He looked down at her blaster and she lowered it.

“I was sent to find you. If you have the key, you must hand it over to me, it's of no value here but in my world, could save five similar realities - including this one!”

He stared at her, leaning on his umbrella as he turned over all she had said as the long cigarette holder in the corner of his mouth aimed upward and a trail of smoke came from it.

“Key?” he repeated, “This key is _valuable,_ you say?”

“Yes, but not to you!” Debbie exclaimed, “It was given to you for safekeeping? You might have been told it was worth a lot of money, you would have been persuaded to guard it?” desperation shone in her eyes, _“Do you have it?”_ she demanded.

Penguin started to smile as more smoke trailed from his cigarette. He laughed and it sounded more like a _quack_.

“No, I don't have your key,” he replied, “But it sounds valuable and you seem to know a lot about it, maybe _you_ can help me find it!”

“ _No!”_ Debbie yelled, as he raised the umbrella and she saw the hollow tip. She had no time to react as orange mist fired out, covering her in a haze as she lost consciousness and slumped to the ground.

Penguin laughed again, then turned to his men.

“Put her in the car,” he ordered.

 

Debbie woke feeling mildly sedated, that feeling rapidly wore off as she realised she was in a bedroom, tied to the bed, thankfully still clothed but her weapons were on the other side of the room, placed in the corner. Ropes bit into her wrists, the bonds were secure and all she could do was struggle as a masked man approached her.

“ _If you touch me, I'll cut off your balls with a rusty blade and put them through a meat grinder!”_ she said darkly as rage filled her eyes.

The masked man looked at her in alarm.

“What sort of world are you from?” he said in horror, “I was only going to offer you some water!”

“ _Shove it up your ass!”_ Debbie raged.

He backed off, went to the door and looked out.

“She's awake, Penguin,” said his henchman, “And she's a bit... _scary_.”

“Out of my way,” Penguin said, pushing past him, then closing the door behind him as he looked across the room at Debbie. Her wrists were aching from struggling against the ropes that bound them, and rage burned in her eyes as she looked back at him.

“You moron!” she hissed, “This isn't a game! I don't have the key, I was sent to look for it. _The Penguin has the key_ , if not you, _another_ man called Penguin! If you don't have it, I need to leave before they send machines to hunt you down! You will have _no_ defence against them!”

Penguin paused for thought, standing closer to the bed as he looked down at her. He had heard and seen many things in this crazy city over the years, enough to understand there could be a real threat looming. He was also good at spotting a lie, and he saw nothing but honesty in her eyes.

“It starts with sky darkening, and a flash like lightning but it's blue, electric blue... then they will come and you won't be able to fight them off!”

Penguin looked back at her weapons. He had never seen guns like _that_ before... He turned back to Debbie.

“There must be a way to destroy them? Tell me more about these foul mechanical fiends.”

“Untie me first!” she said sharply, “I can't help you like this!”

Penguin reached for the ropes.

“If you try anything, I'll kill you,” he warned her.

She rolled her eyes.

“I doubt that, I'm not scared, either. But I am _FRUSTRATED!_ ”

She tugged at the ropes again.

“Be patient,” he said, “This won't take a moment.”

It felt like forever in the minutes it took Penguin to untie her, then Debbie sat up, rubbing at her wrists as she cast him an angry glare.

“ _I hate being tied up! My ex tied me up once, never again, rope burns are not fun!”_ she swung her legs off the bed, rubbing at her wrists as Penguin stood there staring at her, still listening as she ranted.

“ _I used to think my ex husband was so exciting, I was a fool, I threw away my career for the number one security operative on the team - and he was such a prick!”_ she got up, placing her hand on her lower back as she cautiously stretched, then slowly paced the room, hoping the back pain would hold off long enough to handle this situation, _“And then do you know what he did?”_

Penguin shook his head.

“He said he wanted to experiment with more bondage _and_ a sex toy, and he wanted to film it, the kinky bastard! I told him to shove it up his ass and he said, _That's the spirit, Debbie!_ ” she shook her head, “All the while he was fucking someone else. She had the kind of body I used to have before giving birth to three kids! _I am done with marriage, never again!_ ”

She paused to take a breath, stretching her back again.

“Sorry about that,” she added, “I just need to get it out of my system sometimes, it's been a hard week....”

Penguin stared at her. _This lady from the future certainly was different..._ He puffed on his cigarette and then spoke again.

“Can you destroy these machines?”

“I hope so,” she replied, “You have a small team of men on your side, they will send maybe three or four droids to wipe them out and get to you... I can take out the droids...My guns need recharging but my blaster is okay... wait, let me check the blaster...”

She looked to the corner of the room and Penguin went over and retrieved it, pausing to inspect the strange cylindrical weapon.

“How does it work?” he asked as he handed it to her.

She sat there with the weapon in her hands, turned it over and flipped a switch.

“You power this up and it glows inside....No, No... _NO!_ ” Debbie turned the weapon over again, and flipped the switch several times, looking in despair at its core as no glow came from within.

“Please tell me you have a battery?” she said as desperation shone in her eyes.

He looked back at her blankly.

“Due to the quakes in the city, we are at a hideout just outside of Gotham,” he told her as smoke trailed from his cigarette holder, then he laughed his _quack, quack_ laugh, “While Batman and Robin are busy helping with the disaster, I plan to sneak in after dark and raid the city bank!”

“Well good luck with that,” she said flatly, “You'll most likely be dead before then if I can't charge up this weapon!” she flipped open a small casing on the base of the blaster, taking out the dead battery.

“I need another one like this, as long as it's the same type, it will fit. And then it needs to charge for three hours.”

Penguin took the battery from her and went back to the door, opened it up and placed it in the hand of one of his men.

“I need a battery!” he said sharply, “Find one, _now!_ ”

Debbie got off the bed and pulled her guns from their holsters and placed them next to the window, directly in sunlight, watching as a small glow lit up within the core of each weapon.

“I doubt I'll have enough time to charge them fully.”

Debbie gave a weary sigh, as she turned around, Penguin was behind her and now he had extinguished his cigarette. The look of hostility was gone from his eyes, he understood now, he knew the situation, she had made it clear.

“This battle will be deadly?”

She nodded.

“And I'm sorry, but my mission is to search each zone until I find the key. If you don't have it, the other guy does. I have one more Penguin to find. I could leave now, but they're already following me from Zone Two. I can't leave you and your people to face that kind of threat when you've done nothing to deserve it.”

Penguin smiled and laughed a _quack quack_ in a low tone as a hint of darkness reflected in his gaze.

“I'm sure my foul deeds over the years have certainly justified a reason to die by the sword, I have lived by it for too long, perhaps.”

“No,” Debbie replied, recalling all she had learned about each time line before she had left, “Like your other self in Zone Four, you're destined to live to be an old man, and hold on to your power and notoriety. Your life isn't meant to end yet.”

“You know about the future?” he asked with interest.

She shrugged.

“I know more about some than others. I've already changed too much in other realities, Penguin. Just know you have many years ahead of you. I won't let the invasion change that.”

“And this is part of your job, to find the key and save each version of me?”

Debbie shook her head as sorrow shaded her gaze.

“No,” she replied, “Just to find the key. _But I have a conscience._ ”

Just then one of his men returned and handed Penguin a battery. As he left the room again, Debbie smiled.

“Things are looking up,” she said, pausing to place the battery in the casing, then she leaned the blaster against the wall and retrieved her belt that now contained very few cannisters as most had been used up in the other two zones, “Now we just have to hope we have time to charge this thing before the attack begins.”

_Suddenly, there was no time left._

The skies darkened and a blue flash flickered beyond the window, then as it lifted, the glow faded out as from the next room, shouts of alarm were heard.

“ _What the hell was that?”_ yelled one of Penguin's men.

“No... not yet!” Debbie said in despair, and she turned to Penguin and grabbed his shoulders, urgency blazing in her eyes.

“Can you freeze them? Do you have any liquid nitrogen?”

“No...” Penguin said as real fear began to creep into his gaze.

Just then there was a crash as a door burst open on broken hinges and wood splintered. Gunshots rained out, and all hell broke loose...

 

“ _Wait!”_ Debbie yelled, but Penguin had already burst out of the doorway with his umbrella in hand.

A silver creature had made its way into the house, its body twisting and turning in fluid motion. Two of Penguin's men lay dead on the floor as it set its sights on Penguin, raising its weapon as he raised his umbrella gun and let fly a cloud of gas. It covered the creature, and Debbie's eyes widened as it staggered, arms flailing as it began to lose shape and form and started to drip, whatever was in that gas had the ability to pull apart living metal...

“You genius!” she said, and then she shoved her way past him, tore a cannister from her belt and gave it a twist, pitching it into the centre of the room as Penguin's remaining men fired off shots that the creature absorbed as the gas made its melting form start to bubble. It raised a dripping arm as liquid metal dropped to floor and rolled in silver balls, rejoining with the melting puddle at the creatures feet. Then it fired off a single shot and Penguin gave a yell as he fell to the floor and Debbie dived down after him, ducking another shot as she landed on him heavily, sitting astride him as blood flowed from a wound to his thigh.

“Sorry about this!” she said, bouncing on him as she grabbed for his fallen umbrella gun, then turned and aimed it at the creature, firing off another blast of gas. As it melted away, it fired back and she bounced again, turning as another shot sailed past and exploded into a wall, blasting away plaster in a shower of dust. The silver creature came apart, it dropped with a wet splash that covered the floor as living metal bubbled and turned to sludge. Debbie briefly rested her head on Penguin's shoulder as she gave a sigh.

“It's dead!” she exclaimed, and then she sat up, as he looked up at her with an expression of pain and something else she couldn't define.

“Sorry about sitting on you,” she added as she climbed off, “There must be a hell of a lot of chemicals in that umbrella gun, we managed to take one of those creatures out without using my blaster - but more will be on the way soon... At least you have a good sized gun in your pocket, too. Not that it would have done much against a droid, but you certainly know your weapons!”

Penguin sat up and leaned against the wall, pausing to retrieve his top hat, as he grasped hard at his thigh where a shot had ripped through the fabric of his suit.

“ _I don't have a gun, Debbie,”_ he said.

She looked at him.

He looked back her.

She thought about it...

“Not you as well?” she exclaimed, realising what that large, hard object had been, the one she had felt as she bounced on him... _All Penguins were well endowed? She couldn't wait to meet Penguin number four!_

“What do you mean?” he asked, then he smirked and gave a low, _quack quack_ chuckle, “You can bounce on me any time you like, by the way,” he said with a wink. Then as pain registered on his face, Debbie looked down at the wound. It was shallow, just below the surface, and it was glowing...

“Penguin, what do we do?” said his henchman as he came in with a look of panic behind the mask that covered his eyes. Penguin looked to Debbie, happy to hand over the situation to her now the wound to his leg was throbbing and he had already got the measure of those mechanical creatures.

“Nothing,” Debbie replied, “They won't try another attack for a while. I can drive them away from here... but I need the tracker that's in Penguin's leg. Fetch me a clean knife.”

Penguin looked down at the wound and took a slow breath.

“Make it quick,” he said.

“I will,” she promised.

 

Moments later, after a sharp pen knife had been held over a candle flame, Penguin was on the bed and as he laid back, Debbie glanced to the ropes still fixed to the bed post.

“Is it my turn to tie you up, or can you handle this?” she asked.

“Get it over with,” he said to her, closing his eyes.

Debbie moved quickly, digging in the tip of the blade and pushing the device up and out as more blood flowed and Penguin gave a sharp yell.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

As he recovered his breath and she got up to allow one of his people to dress the wound, she shoved the blood stained tracker into her pocket. She went over to the window and picked up her guns, then she retrieved her blaster and turned back to the bed. Penguin was breathing easily now, the wound was being dressed and he was still conscious. It wasn't a serious injury, he would have a scar, but he would live. He didn't have an army like Oswald Cobblepot back in Gotham in the previous zone, this Penguin had a small handful of men and a second attack would see maybe two more of the droids coming through. But they couldn't handle this, and she wasn't going to let that happen...

“I'm taking the tracker with me,” she told him, “It will divert the others already on course and delay more coming through when I reach Zone Four. You won't be attacked again. They're following me now.”

Penguin was sitting up and had just been handed a stiff drink. He sipped it and as she looked at him, she could tell at a glance that already the pain was fading out as he managed a smile.

“Considering the trouble that followed you into this world, I wont ask you to stay,” he told her.

“I had no plans on staying anyway,” Debbie replied, “Get some rest, take care of that leg – and maybe robbing the city bank isn't such a good idea, at least not today?”

He rested comfortably as he held the drink in his hand.

“There's always another day,” he replied.

“Let's hope so,” Debbie said as she thought of the missing key, then she turned the dial to Zone Four, and faded from view.

 

**ZONE FOUR : DC COMICS**

**(this setting is partly taken from BATMAN #58)**

 

Debbie staggered to stay on her feet as the world around her emerged with tall and looming shadows. This was another Gotham City, and the daylight was fading fast. Everything seemed darker here, almost as if this shadowy world had been drawn by an artist... but the ground shook and somewhere up the deserted street, a roof tile crashed the ground, exploding on impact. In the distance, she could hear traffic screeching to a standstill, then the sound of rising panic reached her ears as another tremor shook the ground as the road split with a sharp crack and the earth lay gaping open. There were people up ahead running for cover, terrified as the quake had stuck again. _Yes, here it was much worse. This fourth dimension was affected more than the other realities..._ Debbie glanced up at the cloudy sky. It would soon be dusk. And rain clouds were gathering. So much for her hopes of recharging the pistols, and the blaster still had more than two hours to go before it was operational. She took the tracker from her pocket, dropped it to the sidewalk and ground it with the heel of her boot, as the device shattered it fell dark. Now the droids progress would be slowed for sure.

“ _Good luck following me now, fuckers...”_ she muttered, looking about the darkened streets as she remembered she was fully armed and none of her weapons would work yet. Her back had a dull ache that was throbbing at the base of her spine, but seeing the damaged buildings, a consequence of earlier quakes, took her mind off her own discomfort. This city had suffered badly since the key had been removed. It would probably be the first zone to be destroyed when they system collapsed, if she didn't retrieve it. She had to find it here.

_The Penguin had the key..._

_Where the hell was he?_

Her plan was to walk into the heart of the city and start her search, the danger from the damaged, unstable buildings and possible falling debris were the least of her worries now. She was in the final zone, and if she couldn't find Penguin or the key, there was no hope left...

Just then a sharp breeze blew along the street, chasing a sheet of newspaper with it. She reached down and picked it up, seeing news that was several days old, but news that was _very_ relevant as she recognised the face of the fourth Penguin, and then she read the headline and her eyes widened in alarm as she stared at the article... _Penguin Arrested_ , the headline said, and as she read the rest of it, she shook her head as despair reflected in her eyes as she stood alone on the street and looked towards the end of it, into the quake damaged city:

_How the hell was she going to reach him?_

_In this reality, Penguin was incarcerated in Arkham. He was locked away in maximum security and would stand no chance when the killer droids showed up... She had to get to him first!_

She didn't know for sure how much time she had. Maybe she had bought a day before the attack would happen – or not. There had been no time at all to prepare for battle back in Zone Three... and now the last Penguin was her only hope, and if she didn't get there first, one of those droids could easily wipe out the guards and walk into that cell... He was alone and defenceless. There was only one thing she could do, she hated the idea of it and had said she would never do it, but under the circumstances, she had no other choice, and her back would hate her for it - but she did it anyway because there was no time to waste. Debbie ran, heading for the heart of the city, where she hoped to find a way to Arkham. She had just broken her own personal rule of never running, but now it didn't matter any more, because there was more at stake than her weak back. _If she didn't get to Penguin first, the key was lost, and so was all hope..._

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

 

It was a dark city, too dark to walk alone as night fell. The ache in her back had settled to a dull pain, her shoulder felt tight where stitches were trying to heal. Every joint in her body ached from that balcony jump two zones back and she had given up on the idea of running. She ached all over. This wasn't a mission for an older person. This was a mission that should have been taken on by someone half her age, who was in good shape, who had stamina... She felt ready to give up. There was one last chance to find the key. A sudden crazy thought hit her :

 _What if he didn't have it? What if the information had been wrong? No, that was impossible._ The key was with the Penguin, that was all they had known, all they had been able to tell her – and it had never been more clear to her now that she had been set up. Someone had expected her to fail, someone had sold out Infinite Vision and wanted control over the reality splitter... It wouldn't be Kerry. She recalled her from way back, she was loyal and decent and believed in protecting the machine to protect the realities... But Ellis? He had founded the company. He had a bigger stake than Kerry and she could still recall how he had tried to talk Kerry out of persuading her to take their most powerful weaponry, insisting she didn't need it.. He had _wanted_ her to fail, more than that, he had wanted her dead...She was sure now, completely sure. When she got back there was going to be a hell of a fight... She was tired, she was aching to her bones, she was far from home and she was furious that she had been used and sent on a mission that would have seen her killed if she had not wised up quickly...

“Oh wow...” she said, stopping in her tracks at the end of a street and pausing to look into the darkness as shadows lengthened and night beckoned, “I'm still alive...”

_That was a revelation._

She had been shot at multiple times, hit once, jumped a balcony and not broke a bone and lost count of how many of those killer machines she had taken out. And she was _still_ standing...

“Maybe I _can_ do this!” she said, feeling her hopes rise:

 _Yes, I'm was older, I'm tired and I've been through hell,_ she thought, _But I'm still here! More than that, I've survived a bad marriage, I've raised three kids on my own, I've been through debt and struggled through hard times... That's got to be harder than being shot at! I'm tougher than I thought!_

It was then she looked across the street and saw just what she needed. A car was parked, the engine was running and the door was open as the driver hurried into a nearby apartment. They would coming back out very soon – she knew she had no time to waste. Now it was painful to run, her body was silently screaming at her to stop, but Debbie reached the car, got in and slammed the door, taking off at speed just as the owner came out and, to her alarm, fired off shots as she ducked low and sped up faster, turning the corner with a squeal of tires on road surface. Debbie kept going, driving through the half deserted roads, swerving around debris left from the aftermath of the quake. It would be a long hard journey to reach Arkham...

 

Heading deeper into the city, she met with sinking darkness and chaos where buildings lay in rubble and the road was completely blocked. In the distance she heard an exchange of gunfire but it was coming from much further up the street, so she stopped the car, got out and climbed over rubble. Now she stood in an old, abandoned area where what was left of crumbling buildings had been demolished by the quake. The way through was clear, it would take time, but she kept her weapon at her side, hoping if she was confronted the sight of it and a lot of bluffing would see her though. The moon was starting to shine brightly and up above where the landscape rose, she saw a building in the distance, it was a slow climb uphill all the way and she saw high fences that surrounded it and the sweep of search lights that moved left and right. She had found this city's version of Arkham, now she just had to get through a long hike, find a way in and hope she got there before flickers of electric blue lit up the darkened skies...

 

The walk was exhausting. She made her way through the rubble of old buildings, pausing now and then to see the few lights that still burned in the city were now far behind her, then she heard the whine of the electrical power start up, and she looked down at the blaster and breathed a relieved sigh, but just then another thought hit her:

_Two hours had passed by?_

_She had been making her way through the aftermath of the quake for two precious hours, when those creatures could arrive at any minute?_

She felt a flicker of panic as she looked up at the building that loomed closer now. There was still time, the skies had stayed dark, as long as they stayed that way, no danger was here yet...

“Please,” she whispered as she climbed upward, finally reaching the roadside that led to Arkham, “Please let me get there in time...” she glanced up at the skies again, but no flicker of unearthly blue was in sight.

Debbie made her way up the road, staying close to the shadows, clutching her fired up blaster as she started to plan ahead:

_The time had come to do the one thing she had never wanted to do, and this time it was nothing to do with running. The place was heavily guarded. She could easily take out the guards with a single shot from the multi target weapon, she could set it to stun and knock them out cold, but for them, it would be intensely painful. That had not been a part of her plan when taking on this mission, she had agreed to this job to find a key, not to hurt people who got in her way. Even in the old days, she had thought of her job as catching bad guys. She had never harmed anyone simply to make a mission easier. But she had no choice now. Penguin was in Arkham, the place was heavily guarded and she had to get him out..._

The moonlight reflected in her eyes as she looked to the tall locked gates, then stepped out of the shadows, using the scanner on the device to focus on the power source that controlled the lock that held the gates together. The weapon found its target and she touched the screen, then gave the trigger a quick squeeze. Sparks flew as the lock bust apart and guards came running. Debbie dropped to her knees, switching the power level to stun, saw the screen light up and hit the trigger again. Multiple arcs of tangerine fire shot from the blaster, snaking through the wide open space and hitting every human being standing as a scorching mesh covered their bodies and they screamed and struggled, then fell.

The air was still and silent as she rose to her feet. Bodies littered the ground as she walked in through the gate and began to step over the stunned guards. The machine let out a whine, firing into life again as its auto detect spotted more life forms, and she saw men running with raised guns, and fired again. Shots rang out, but they were already hit, and their bullets hit the ground as they fell, as others embedded in the concrete walls of the asylum. Then it was silent once more. She didn't know how long they would stay down, but going by the way they had screamed in agony, it would be a few hours... The searchlight was still sweeping the area, momentarily showing her shadow tall in its glare, and then it moved off again as she headed for the open doorway. She stepped over another fallen guard who was face down with a gun still in his hand, then she stopped, looking about entrance and the locked, barred doors that led on to dimly lit corridors. Just then she heard shouts echo, and the sound of running as more guards and now staff in white coats hurried behind them, grabbing weapons from the fallen bodies.

“ _I'm sorry,”_ said Debbie in a hushed voice.

The screen had lit up, the targets were selected and as she fired, there was a crackle above as the sky beyond the open door lit with a flash so bright the room was shaded in a blue glow that rose, then faded at the same time the tangerine fire flickered from the weapon, taking out staff and guards alike. Debbie lowered the weapon as the last of the bodies fell. Now the dimly lit area was in silence, it was a deathly silence that was broken only by the sound of her breathing as from beyond a barred window, the searchlight shone from light to dark in a slow rhythm.

And something cold was cutting through her jacket, penetrating with its chill and sending a sharp, sickening pain through her healing bullet wound. She turned her head slowly, coming face to face with a different kind of droid, it was made of the same living metal but the silver flowed in trickles beneath a transparent surface, its eyes were deep set and glowed green and its face was darkly metallic and skeletal, as solid metal joints were visible beneath the main structure of liquid silver, and within its chest was a solid unit where circuits glowed. This was no ordinary droid. Clearly, the change of circumstances in this zone, and the knowledge that the key was yet to be found, had persuaded the enemy to send in something that was far from standard. _This was an elite unit, capable of taking out every human obstacle in its way to find the Penguin and the key..._

As she cried out in alarm and tore away from its cold touch, it took a step closer as its burning eyes fixed on her and it raised a hand, as the fingers stretched into pointed daggers and it lunged, swiping at the air as she leapt back.

“ _Oh, shit no!”_ she yelled, and now, running was the _only_ thing that would keep her alive as she leapt over a motionless body and ran down a corridor into the unknown, where doors were barred and locked and dim lights stuttered on and off.

 

Debbie ran all the way to the end of the corridor, and that was when she hit the locked, barred door. She hit it so hard the pain in her wounded shoulder throbbed, and she grabbed at the bars and shook them as the lock stayed firmly in place. _Of course. This was Arkham. Locked doors everywhere. And one elite killer droid advancing towards her..._

She raised the blaster, it felt heavy all over again, her grip was shaky, and that _thing_ was fast and too strong and almost had her now. She thought of home and her kids and closed her eyes, knowing she would never see them again. But it didn't matter now, it was over, she would never find the key, all worlds would soon collapse...

_And suddenly, it all changed._

A sharp electronic whine came from the other end of the corridor. There was a crackle and a flash of orange fire and the creature was struck with barbs that slicked through the shell and through the metal, spearing it multiple times as the tips of the spears began to emit hissing gas that made its structure bubble. It collapsed in a heap as the shine began to fade from the living metal and the creature was turned to a mound of sludge and scrap metal instantly as the barbs sunk into the mess on the floor. Debbie looked down at the sight of the destroyed monster:

_A killer elite unit, reduced to sludge by a blaster gun loaded with weaponry capable of spearing and then melting it? Where she came from, nothing like that existed...yet._

There was a smoky haze filling the other end of the corridor because that weapon had a hell of a lot of fire power, and now there was someone walking through that haze towards her. Debbie stared at him in disbelief... _it couldn't be..._ He made his way around the mess on the floor and as he reached her, she was still staring at him. She hadn't see him since Zone Two, and now he looked very different in faded blue jeans that hugged his hips and a brown leather jacket, but the biggest change was the eye patch. _Since when did Jim Gordon wear an eye patch?_ She made a guess.

“You're the James Gordon from this reality?”

He gave a slight shake of his head, then he smiled.

“No, Debbie. You met me back in Zone Two when I helped Oswald destroy the droid army with the liquid nitrogen,” he pushed back his sleeve, showing her the device he wore on his wrist – it was similar to her own, and she was utterly confused.

“But you can't cross zones...”

Jim was holding back on her, she knew it as he looked at her, as if he was guarding a secret.

“What's going on?” she demanded.

“You saw me a couple of days ago,” Jim said, “As you travelled through the realities, trying to find the key. But for me, a few years have gone by since we last met. You're going to need these,” he handed her a keyring containing security cards, “Swipe the blue one to get through the next six locked doors, then you'll find yourself in another wing - Penguin is in a secure cell that's close to the main door, the first door on the left. The red card will unlock the cell.”

“He has the key?”

Jim saw desperation in her eyes.

“I can't mess with the timeline,” he said “You'll understand some day.”

“ _Does he have the key?”_ Debbie demanded as her voice echoed about the silent corridor.

“Just continue with the mission, I'm not here to guide you, I came here to stop that droid from injuring you and slowing you down. It would have been a terrible fight, but I owed you a favour.”

“What for?” she asked.

Jim smiled as his eye misted with tears.

“For what you did for me and Ozzy,” he replied softly, “We did fight side by side in the city war,” he gestured to his eye,”That's how I got this, trying to protect Oz when a grenade exploded.”

“But you're both okay?”

She desperately wanted him to say yes, they were both fine, but Jim was clearly emotional at the mention of the war and she didn't get her answer, because at that moment, the device on his wrist started to flash.

“I have to go,” he said, and he stepped back, turning the dial on the device, and as he faded out, his words faded with him, “You'll see me again some day,” said Jim, then he was gone.

Debbie didn't have time to think about any of this as she looked down at the pass cards in her hand then selected the blue one, and swiped the first door and it unlocked immediately.

 

Five doors later she found herself in a dimly lit maximum security wing. Considering the low count of guards and staff she had stunned with the blaster on her way in, she guessed staffing was low right now, due to the quakes that had recently hit the city. There were no guards to be seen and no staff here, either. In their cells, prisoners called out and thumped on doors, but she made her way over to the cell just as Jim had instructed and unlocked it. She gave the door a push and it swung open as she stood there, looking battered in her scuffed jeans and ripped jacket, armed to the teeth with weapons the likes of which people in this reality had never seen before.

And then she saw him:

_He was sitting there in his cell in an orange prison uniform, his head was shaved and he had a cold look in his ice blue eyes. He was an older man, and he was big, too. He was wide and round and broad and he sat there with his thick thighs spread apart as he met with her gaze._

“ _Wow...” Debbie whispered, and the keyring slipped from her grip as she stood there, admiring this big, imposing man Zone Four knew as The Penguin..._

Then, the spell was broken.

“Who are you?” he demanded as he got to his feet and walked heavily over to her.

Debbie pushed her damp, messed up hair off her face and shot him a look of annoyance as she thought of the danger she had faced and guessed a little bit of appreciation would have been nice...

“Hello, I'm Debbie Flint, the rescue party? I've come to _save_ you from a killer droid that was sent from another reality to _murder_ you because you're holding a valuable key?”

His eyes narrowed.

“What key?”

She gave a sigh of despair.

“Oh no, not again! You have the key, _please_ tell me you have the key to stabilise the reality splitter? If you don't have it, I can't find it and the mission fails and the quakes get worse and _everyone_ dies!”

Tears filled her eyes as she reached for him, feeling strong arms beneath his prison clothing as she clutched at the orange fabric and tried to give him a shake, but only succeeded in shaking herself.

“ _Please tell me you have the key! Even if you don't have it, just pretend so I can be happy for five minutes! Just pretend and say yes! Please, do it for me, I have been through SO much shit!”_

Penguin reached up, closing his hands over her arms with surprising gentleness for one so big. He had heard all she said, and this news of a key meant nothing to him, but he understood the gravity of the situation.

“This key, you say its valuable?”

“Oh no, not again!” she exclaimed, “No, not to you, not to anyone here! It belongs in a machine in another reality – where I come from – and if it's not returned, these quakes will carry on and get worse until nothing is left, not just here, but in four other realities!”

He looked at her doubtfully. She looked back at him and recalled how each meeting had initially started off with the other Penguins.

“Oh well, at least you don't want to fill my void, torture me or tie me up with rope!” and she laughed, because it was either that, or cry. She was desperate, and he could see it at a glance. He shrugged, attempting to ease the tension.

“Maybe we could do all three - but not necessarily in that order,” his mouth curved into a smile that soon faded as he saw tears her gaze, and then worry reflected in his own.

“You're telling me the truth? You really don't have it?” she said in a hushed voice.

“I do not have your key,” he said, and as she gave a sob of despair Penguin pulled her closer, letting her weep on his shoulder as he thought about all she had told him... _There were other realities? And all realities were doomed to destruction without this key?_ He ran a hand over her hair and she raised her head, looking into ice blue eyes as he started to speak.

“When I saw you I the doorway, after hearing the chaos outside, I thought someone had sent in a beautiful mercenary to get me out,” he said, and briefly smiled, “But I realise I was wrong, about my rescue - and it's probably a good thing, too. My lawyer is getting me out of here tomorrow... _If_ we have a tomorrow, who knows when this world may collapse?”

He was right. She didn't know when the end would come, either. Here the quakes had been severe and it was only a matter of time before this zone went first, it could cave in right now and wipe itself out of existence and she would go with it...

“End of the world,” Debbie said quietly, looking into his eyes and feeling thankful for his touch and his closeness as he embraced her tightly and they both thought about the end as if they could hear the seconds ticking down on a doomsday clock. Then Penguin stepped back and caught hold of her hand.

“If the key can't be found, the end is near,” he told her, “Perhaps we should make the most of what time we have left? We both have nothing to lose,” his eyes shaded with sadness, “I am thought of as a monster in this city, a feared criminal. It has given me a life of power but also loneliness.”

He had sat back down on his bed now, and she didn't pull away from his grip, she was thankful of his closeness as she sat there beside him.

“I didn't want to die like this, in Arkham,” he told her, “The least we can hope for is sunrise. Then I'll leave when my lawyer returns after the chaos had died down. At least Batman can't blame me for this! And you should stay with me when I get out, Debbie. We can keep each other company... _if_ tomorrow comes.”

They were so close now, as she turned her head and leaned in their lips were almost touching.

“And if it doesn't come?” she whispered, feeling a magnetic pull towards this big, heavy built Penguin, a pull that was raw and purely sexual.

His blue gaze burned with desire as he murmured his reply.

“ _We still have tonight,”_ he said.

Penguin drew her closer, kissing her hard and with urgency as she welcomed his tongue into her mouth and he pulled her on to his lap, as she ran her hands over his shoulders and the feel of his hard, growing bulge made her instantly wet and aching to feel him inside her. She already knew as she kissed him again and gave a low moan of pure longing, that _this_ Penguin was a big boy where it mattered most, just like all the others. _Had she come all this way and gone through so much just to find out that in every reality, every Penguin had a big cock?_ At least that was something, even if she hadn't found the key... Her brief amusement switched to desperation as she thought of the worsening quakes, then as he reached down and freed his erection, she broke off from their kiss to lean down and suck on him, as he leaned back, giving a sigh as she took his long, thick hardness deep into her mouth. Then she pulled away, briefly shifted over to kick off her boots and strip her jeans and underwear off in one, leaving her panties tangled up in her jeans on the floor as she climbed back onto his big, comfortable lap, her body pressed up soft against his belly as she shifted closer and he reached down, guiding his cock into her body as she gave a cry of pure lust as he thrust in, filling her up all the way. She let him take over, wanting to do no more than hold on as she gasped and sighed and ground against him, not caring that every other prisoner in Arkham's most dangerous wing were locked away and forced to listen. _Fuck the lot of them,_ she thought, _let them hear us. It doesn't matter any more, nothing does, all that's left is this, my last hours before the worlds collapse, and I'm glad I met him..._

As she clung to him Penguin thrust upwards and she got into a rhythm of thrusting and bouncing against his big, heavy body as he fucked her with surprising speed and strength. The sound of his hardness sliding out and into her again as her thighs smacked against his ample flesh echoed about the cell as Penguin thrust in one more time, hard and bruising, then he pulled out of her and pushed his erection into her hand, letting her do the rest as she jerked at his shaft and hot white come exploded in a throb and spurted out, spattering his prison uniform. He was breathless as he sat here, leaning up against the wall as he tidied his clothing, and then he smiled.

“If I live to see tomorrow, I have no intention of cleaning away this stain,” he told her, “Let them all see the Penguin gets his pleasure even behind bars!”

Debbie giggled.

“No, Penguin - anyone outside of this wing who didn't hear us together will think you've just been jerking off alone and making a mess,” she reminded him.

“True,” he agreed, I hadn't considered that!”

He pulled her close and they shared another kiss. Then Debbie got up and got dressed and holstered her pistols as Penguin watched her, wondering why she was preparing to fight a battle that was already lost.

“Debbie,” he said, “Your mission is over. I do not have your key. The best you can do is leave here, wait until tomorrow. When I am released, we can spend what ever time is left together, at my club. We can drink and forget about the tomorrow that may never come, we can go home together and make love in a comfortable bed. We can celebrate life while we still breathe.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, then she walked over to him and as he reached for her, she sat on his lap and slid her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder as she thought about all that had gone before.

“I was told the Penguin had the key,” she said as he embraced her, “I'm thinking back... in the zone before this one, that Penguin definitely didn't have it. Neither did Oswald in Zone Two...”

“I wish I could say I had it, but I do not,” Penguin reminded her.

Debbie's eyes widened as a realisation hit her... _something_ had finally fallen into place. She sat up sharply, looking into his ice blue eyes.

“Zone One Penguin said he didn't have it, but he wanted me to stay and when I said I had to leave, he insisted he _did_ have the key. I didn't believe him!”

Penguin thought about it.

“If your information was right, then he does have it, and you must go back, Debbie!”

She got up and paced the floor of the cell, thinking about her options, then she turned back to Penguin as he stood up and joined her.

“I can't go back.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Says who?”

“Well, it's the rules, I have to pass through each zone and by process of elimination find the key. I was told how to proceed.”

A crafty smile came to his face.

“And rules are often made to be broken,” he reminded her, “Go back, Debbie. Find the key.”

She looked into his eyes, turning over all she had been told. She had been instructed on how to carry out the mission, to go to each zone and find the key and then return to base... but she had not been specifically told _not_ to return to a previous reality! Her mind was made up as she reached for her blaster and tightened her belt, checking her weapons were securely in place.

“I'll never forget you,” she said with a smile, “But now I have to go. I might be making a huge mistake, but I have to try.”

He stepped closer, their gaze locked and warmth shone in eyes that had once reflected ice, where now only fondness remained.

“I see a look about you that says you might have more to hope for than just finding a key back in Zone One,” he told her, “This other Penguin, he means something to you. Love is precious and if you have found it, hold on to it.”

Now she knew she could go back, she was ready to let her heart flood with emotion at the thought of that short, round man with flippers for hands. She had tried to write him off as someone from another reality who she would never see again, but that had just changed in a heartbeat. She _would_ see him again...

“You look like you have a plan,” Penguin said.

Debbie smiled.

“I do have a plan,” she replied, “And I'll make it work if it's the last thing I ever do. I'm finding that key! Go home tomorrow and enjoy a drink in your Club, Penguin. If I've succeeded, by then, the quakes will have stopped.”

“I wish you the best of luck,” he replied, giving her a hug.

As she let go, they paused to exchange a glance. All they had shared had reminded them both they were still alive and possibly, had a future to look forward to. Penguin would leave Arkham tomorrow with hope that his reality would continue, and when those quakes stopped, he would know for sure she had succeeded. As for Debbie, her plans were already formed in her mind, and they didn't just involve the key...

“Safe journey,” said Penguin as Debbie turned the dial all the way back to Zone One.

“Take care of yourself, Penguin,” she said fondly, and then she vanished.

 

**ZONE ONE : Batman Returns Universe**

 

The world shifted sharply and as she was taken with it and it felt like a sharp tug out of one reality and an equally sharp landing in another, she wondered if she had taken a risk and if there was real danger attached to jumping several zones at once, but as she stood there and the bite of the winter air made her shiver as her boots sunk into soft snow she looked around her, knowing at once she had arrived safely. This was snowy Gotham, and she knew the way to the tunnel system that would take her underground and back to Arctic World. The icy cold worked quickly to wipe out any vague sense of floating the journey had left her with as she shivered again, then headed off to find the tunnel.

As she walked, she didn't care about how hard this mission had been on her body. Yes, she was aching all over, but she didn't care any more. That hot encounter with the big man from the shadowy world of Zone Four had led to a conversation that had changed so much. Now she had a plan, but first, she had to get the key from the Penguin with the flipper hands, the unusual man who had touched her heart. She wanted to see him again, she was aching to hold him. Knowing she could break the rules and return had changed _so_ much... But as she reached the tunnel system and left the icy cold of the ground above and began to make her way below ground towards the old zoo, where Penguin would be living with his odd circus troupe and surrounded by a pool of toxic water, those tender feelings she had finally recognised had been taken over by anger.

_He had the key?_

_After all she had been through, he had the key all the long?_

She was angry at herself for not listening harder when he had first made that admission. But she was far more angry with him for keeping the secret for so long, after she had stayed overnight, even taken him in her arms... he had only told her the truth when she was ready to leave, and by then she had dismissed his confession as desperation as he pleaded with her to stay. _Yes, it was her fault for not listening. But he never should have lied in the first place..._ Debbie turned a corner and headed up another tunnel, where at the end, she saw light. Arctic World was up ahead, and the fond reunion she had hoped for was in serious risk of not happening at all, because she was furious now. She had travelled on through three more zones, been injured, shot at, fought battles... _And all because the little guy with flipper hands had lied about the key?_

She was furious as she headed for the stairway that led up into the cavern that Penguin called home. So much for any romantic notions that had crossed her mind. Right now, she wasn't just sore and hurting from being shot and jumping off a balcony and even breaking her own rule and actually running – she was furious with him. As she went up the stairway, anger blazed in her eyes. _This was going to be a reunion Penguin would never forget..._

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers :-) This is the final chapter!  
> I hope this fic has been enjoyed.  
> It was a lot of fun to write and a real thrill to write four different versions of Penguin too!  
> I'll be back soon with a new fic - also, for those who enjoyed the trilogy, Part Four of Unconditional Love is soon on the way :D  
> Love Davina X

Chapter 8

 

“ _Penguin?”_ Debbie's voice echoed about the icy cavern as far off, the penguins turned and looked with interest at her.

“Have you seen him?” she called out to the penguins, who looked at her, blinked, looked at each other and then ignored her.

She gave a heavy sigh.

“That was stupid, Debbie. As if they can answer you!”

Then she stopped and looked around:

 _The place was deserted. That creepy, faded old circus troupe were nowhere to be seen. The place seemed ghostly, abandoned..._ Then she felt a flicker of panic, remembering that each location had been time set – each reality had their own timeline and travelling between them without the time set on the device meant she could have returned here to the past or the future - clearly, much more than a few days had passed in this reality since her last visit...

“ _Oh no...”_ she whispered, feeling a rising sense of dread as she made her way over to the stairway that led up to living space Penguin called his own. She was thinking about the timeline, about how he had been destined to die after taking on a fight with Batman and falling into toxic water...

_Was he dead?_

That thought sent a cold spike of pain through her heart. She reached the top of the stairs and pushed the door open. The room was empty...

“Penguin, I'm sorry I was too late...” Debbie said tearfully as she went over to bed, where the covers were back and the bed was vacant. The whole place was still silent.

_Then, a toilet flushed._

She turned around to the door that led to the bathroom. She heard the sound of running water, then there was a brief pause, the door opened and he waddled out.

“ _Penguin!”_ she said joyfully, and she rushed over to him as he stood there, looking startled as he raised his flippers in surprise.

She collided with him, hugging him tightly as he started to smile... _She had come back for him?_ He gave her a hug, she was still holding on as she drew back, looking into his small dark eyes as her own filled with tears of relief.

“Oh thank god you're okay! I found the place empty, I thought you were dead!”

Penguin let go of her and smiled broadly.

“Of course I'm not dead! I was just in the bathroom taking a dump!”

Debbie laughed. Here he was alive and well, crude as ever and still her Penguin... _Her Penguin?_ Where had _that_ thought come from? As she looked at him, she felt such warmth in her heart that anger was impossible now.

“Where did your people go?” she asked.

“I took your advice, I stayed out of trouble. They got bored and left because it seems I was only their leader while I had a grand plan to carry out. So I stayed here alone, just me and the penguins....” his small beady eyes lit up with excitement as he remembered something, “Debbie, I really do have your key!”

“You do?”

“ _Yes!”_

Relief flooded through her as he smiled back at her, then he turned away and waddled over to the other side of the room, opened up the safe and drew out a transparent block, inside the wiring was dark and the lights were out, but the key was undamaged.

“Here it is!” he said, holding it in his flipper as he waddled back over to her. As he handed it to her, she blinked away tears.

“Thank you so much. And I'm sorry I didn't l believe you. Now I have to take this back to my reality... “ then she remembered something else, “Where's your little boy?”

Penguin looked at her in confusion.

“I don't have a little boy.”

Debbie shook her head, still confused about all she had seen in the other zones, but there was no time to waste now. She stuffed the key into her pocket, and then she hesitated. Penguin was just standing there, a sad look in his dark eyes as he touched the tips of his flippers together and looked at her.

“I was hoping you might consider staying here and making a life with me. But you only came back for the key. I understand, you have plans and I'm not a part of them.”  
Debbie felt an ache in her heart. Then she remembered the words of the other Penguin, the big guy who she had opened her heart to back in the previous zone. _Rules were made to be broken, he said, and he was right!_ Debbie reached into her pocket and pulled out the spare wrist device.

“You,” she said, grabbing his flipper and securing the device, “Are not doing to stay here alone living near toxic waste that will eventually kill you. You're coming with me instead!”

There was a beep as she set the zone control on a timer as he looked down at the device, then back at Debbie in confusion.  
“Why do you want me to go with you?” he asked, holding back on the other part of his question because he feared the answer would not be what he hoped for.

Debbie set her own timer, the manual method would be too instant and she didn't want him to travel alone as they crossed zones. With seconds to spare, she looked into his eyes and spoke the truth that had been waiting to be heard since the day they had first met, and also answered his question.

“ _Because I love you, Penguin,”_ she said, then as surprise registered in his eyes, she took hold of his flipper as they shimmered and the world around them faded out.

 

**The Fifth Reality, the Root Zone:**

 

As the shimmering turned to shadow and then back to light once more, Penguin swayed on his feet then blinked rapidly, feeling disoriented as he stood in a white corridor and looked to a window where he saw a view of Gotham City – but not quite as he remembered it.

“Welcome to the root zone,” Debbie said, “Our reality is the core. Yours and the other three realities branch off from it. But there's no time to explain,” her eyes darkened as she set her sights on the door at the end of the corridor, “We're at the HQ of Infinite Vision, and someone's in the shit with me!” As she spoke, she powered up her blaster as Penguin looked to the end of the corridor, very much missed his absent umbrella weapon collection, and waddled after her...

 

The blast of a weapon and the cries of the guards outside the door alerted Ellis and Kerry, who had been in the middle of a tense talk and then a fight as Kerry had reported their operative had crossed back to Zone One, then as Ellis had suddenly raged she should not alive by now, Kerry had realised the truth and reached beneath the table for the emergency button. Ellis had a gun in his hand, and as he blasted the window between the board room and the chamber where the reality splitter sat, she lunged for the weapon. The fire of the blaster outside had been a brief distraction, but as she turned her head, he landed a punch on her jaw that send her crashing to the floor. She felt a tug on her belt and the pass key to the next room was gone. The alert had sounded, guards would be summoned, but they were on the top floor and none had expected the enemy to be someone on the inside... He had wanted Debbie to fail...

Blood dripped from her nose as Kerry crawled to the table, then reached up to cling on as she shakily got to her feet. The chamber had been breached. He had to be stopped but her head was spinning and her legs were buckling. Then, the door burst open. She stared at the open doorway in disbelief:

 _It couldn't be. But it was... It was Debbie Flint!_ She looked battered and bruised and her jacket was torn, but her blaster was fired up and she looked furious.

“Where is he?” she demanded.

Kerry weakly pointed to the open doorway, and Debbie ran for it, as a strange, round, flipper handed man waddled after her...

 

Debbie raised the blaster. Ellis was standing over the machine, his hand balled into a fist as he rested it on the protective shell that covered a glowing river of channels that mapped out five realities. He saw the blaster in her hand, noticed how battered and bruised she looked. And she was furious, but he laughed as he met her gaze.

“You can't fire that thing in here. You'd shatter the protective shell and risk destroying the other realities!” as he spoke, he waved the gun in his other hand, “I made a deal with Eternal Unlimited to apparently lose the key, Kerry insisted it was found because she knew nothing about it, she trusted me,” he laughed, “She was always too trusting. But I don't care what they want to do with the ability to travel through the zones or their timelines – I just want the biggest , sweetest deal in history – and you have to die so I can be sure to get it!”

Debbie's eyes narrowed. Penguin stood beside her, glaring angrily at Ellis as he silently wished he had brought an umbrella gun with him – but Debbie's weapon was powered up and she raised it despite the threat her former employer had just made.

“That would be suicide,” Ellis reminded her, “Not to mention, you would destroy all other realities!”

The machine's whine heightened as she set it at its highest level. Her gaze locked with his in defiance.

“I'd rather take a chance than let you hand the key over to the enemy!”

He smirked as he tapped lightly on the shell of the machine, “I will take that key from your cold, lifeless body, you can't win this one! If I slam my fist into this shell more than three times, it will shatter. You'd better drop your weapon and slide it over to me.”

Debbie stepped forward, refusing to disarm, and now only the shell of the machine separated them as the fiery routes between realities glowed and lights zipped about in the heart of the machine like fireflies.

“And after having three kids, if I sneeze more than three times,” said Debbie, “I'll piss myself - but that's life!”

She raised the weapon as its core glowed. He raised his gun as a smile of satisfaction came to his face.

“You have the key. I kill you and Kerry, then explain when the guards come that I've just apprehended the thief. I get to walk away with billions and our so called rivals take over.”

In the distance, the alarms were still wailing. Ellis looked hard at her as his finger hovered on the trigger.

“It won't happen,” Debbie told him, keeping her aim steady.

Ellis laughed coldly.

“You can't stop me. Give me one reason why it won't happen!”

Debbie drew in a deep breath. She kept her aim steady and her finger on the trigger.

“It won't happen because you're fucked, “ she stated, “As fucked as my pelvic floor!”

She hit the trigger as she heard Kerry yell _No_ from somewhere behind the open door, the tangerine bolts of power shot through the shell and shattered it as a mesh engulfed Ellis and he screamed as his body stiffened, then exploded in a bloody mess up the walls of the chamber. The windows shattered as outside, a heavy wind that turned the skies black blew through the room with force, throwing Penguin against the wall as Kerry clung to the door frame.

“ _The pathways are damaged!”_ she yelled above the wind.

Debbie lunged forward, over the top of the machine, doing the only thing she could think to do as she saw the fragile branches breaking away from the root. She dived over the power source, closing her hands about the hot channels as they shimmered and twisted and warped and the roar of the wind became deafening.

“ _Debbie, no, let go!”_ Kerry screamed.

A channel broke away and Debbie drew it back, pushing it to the root of the system as it bonded and glowed, then a jolt tugged through her body, throwing her from the machine with force. She hit the floor with a thud just as the wind dropped and daylight returned to the skies.

Debbie opened her eyes to silence.

Penguin waddled over, Kerry fell to her knees and said her name. Debbie heard it like a whisper, feeling as if a part of herself was still trapped within the machine as she blinked again, and wasn't in the chamber any more:

_There was a lush green field and a short, round little boy with flippers for hands was laughing and waddling and jumping up and down as he watched a kite flutter in blue skies._

Kerry said her name again, and it echoed about her head. Then sound came back as Kerry said _Debbie_ again, and she blinked, looking up at her.

“Are you okay?” Kerry paused to wipe blood from her nose.

“I think so...” Debbie sat up, then reached for the flipper that was held out to her, as Penguin helped her back to her feet. Debbie looked sharply at Kerry, who had gone over to the machine, and was looking down at the changed pathways.

“Give me the key, quickly!”

Debbie pulled it from her pocket and handed it to her, then leaned against the edge of the machine as Penguin stood beside her and they watched the key slide back into place. The branches stabilised as the heart of the machine began to glow strongly. _But its shape had changed. Debbie noticed it right away. There used to be five branches, now there were only four..._

“I lost a reality?” Debbie exclaimed as tears filled her eyes.

“No,” Kerry said in a hushed voice, “The root has a new channel bonded to it. You didn't lose the reality. You pulled it into ours, you caught the timeline around ten years ahead of us and dragged it here. Zone Two is safe. _Look out the window..._ ”

As she said that, Penguin was staring in disbelief through the shattered window. And now Debbie was staring too. It didn't seem possible, but there it was...

“There's another bridge...” she whispered.

Kerry smiled as tears of relief shone in her gaze.

“ _And over that bridge, is another Gotham City.”_

Then the guards finally arrived, as Kerry announced the security breach was over, and she mentioned the cops would be paying a visit to Eternal Unlimited. And as Debbie leaned on Penguin she felt exhausted.

“There are two Gotham cities?”

“Yes,” Kerry turned from a conversation with a guard.

“And everything is okay now?”

“Yes and no...”

“Will I still get paid?”

“Yes!” she insisted, then Kerry said _Excuse me_ to the security guard and went back over to the machine, watching as a panel lit up and reported on the changed reality.

“You said yes and no? What does that mean?” Debbie clutched at Penguin's arm as she ached all over and longed to go home and have a hot bath to lift out her aches and pains and go to bed.

Kerry looked up from the machine.

“The newly bonded reality is safe, it's a part of our world now. But you touched your own timeline as you pulled the two zones together. It means at some point into the future, you'll lose a day. You might forget everything. But it will come back to you.”

Debbie breathed a relieved sigh.

“If that's all, let's go home,” she said as she turned for the door, leaning against Penguin's shoulder.

“Home?” he blinked his small round eyes, looking at her in confusion.

“My home, our home!” she said, then she took hold of his flipper and gave it a squeeze.

 

They made their way out into the corridor, heading for the elevator as she limped and her back hurt and Penguin waddled beside her.

“You really love me?” he asked in a hopeful, gruff voice.

“Yes, to the moon and back but I hope you can drive my car, I'm so tired!”

They reached the elevator and she pushed the button.

“I can drive a duck,” Penguin reminded her.

She turned her head. He smiled broadly as a hopeful shine came to his eyes.

“On second thoughts, I'll drive,” Debbie replied.

Penguin was still smiling.

“You really, truly love me?”

“Yes!”

“Can I share your life and your bed?” his eyes glowed with joy.

She smiled too.

“Yes!”

He looked at her hopefully.

“And can I fill your void?”

Debbie laughed as she turned to him and wrapped her arms around him, looking into his small, dark eyes that were soft and full of love.

“Yes, you can,” she promised him, “But have a bath first because you stink of raw fish!” Then she pulled him closer and they shared a kiss and she didn't care that he smelled of fish, because she loved him. The doors opened, they got in, and they took the elevator to the ground floor.

 

_Debbie was exhausted, but she managed the drive home._

_The kids had made a terrible mess, and she realised they had a party while she was away, but she was too tired to yell at them. Penguin did it for her – loudly - as they stared at the odd, short man with the flipper hands who was apparently their Mom's new boyfriend._

_The kids cleaned up. The house would never be a shithole again._

_Debbie was tired and she ached to her bones. That night she slept in her own bed, back home, with Penguin beside her._

_She kept her promise._

_He filled her void. She knew for sure she was in love with him._

_And this isn't where the story ends..._

 

**Five Years Later**

 

There was a memory floating around in Debbie's head: A blue sky, a little boy who looked like Penguin was waddling about on the grass and looking up and watching as a kite fluttered in the breeze. It reminded her of the day she had touched her own timeline, and then...

_What had happened after that?_

Debbie gave a sigh as she lay there on her bed, in her tidy house...

_It was always tidy now. The kids were all grown up but still lived at home, and they actually listened when Penguin told them to clean up, too..._

More memories were slowly creeping back, filling in gaps as pieces of the past five years began to drift into place.

This was their new home. It was a big house, it was beautiful because she didn't have to worry about money any more. Infinite Vision had paid her a huge sum for saving the five realities.

It sunk in again, and it felt wonderful:

_I saved five realities. Now, they are four, because Zone Two is part of our world..._

She tried to recall more as she sat up on her bed, she was on top of the covers, she was fully dressed and she remembered that in the wardrobe, at the back, she still had her battered old leather jacket with the shot burned through the shoulder, she kept it to remind herself of something... Debbie couldn't recall what.

Then the door opened and Penguin waddled in. There was an anxious look in his eyes that started to fade as he saw she was awake, and he came over and joined her, sitting on the edge of the bed as he took her hand in his flipper and held it gently.

“When you saved the realities, you touched your own timeline. Kerry said five years from that day, you would forget everything for twenty four hours. We were at the park and you fainted. That was yesterday...Do you remember everything, is it coming back yet?”

Debbie clutched at his hand.

“There was a kite.”

Penguin nodded. His small dark eyes sparkled as he sat there in a dark suit with a grey tie and matching waistcoat, he looked well groomed these days and didn't stink of fish any more. And he wore a gold chain around his neck and on that chain was his wedding ring, because rings and flippers didn't go together...

“You're my husband!” she said as she recalled their wedding day, after all she had said about never marrying again, she hadn't thought twice about marrying Penguin. This was the love that was going to last...

“Yes! Of course I am, my love!” he said as he smiled warmly, “What else do you recall?”

Debbie thought hard. Something else slid into place.

“You went to see Kerry and she let you revisit my journey to find the key...You followed me in safer moments so I'd be reminded I was loved? You did that to make up for not telling me about the key when we first met?”

“Yes,” he told her fondly, “But think, there is more...”

Debbie held on to his warm, soft flipper, recalling a conversation with Kerry that had happened a few years ago.

“Kerry wanted to make me chief of security...But I didn't take the job... _Why_ didn't I take the job?”

She was confused, but he was smiling.

“What?” she asked, “What am I missing here?”

“Just think back,” Penguin told her as his eyes shone and a glow of happiness radiated from his face.

“Did she say I'd have to run?”

“No.”

Debbie frowned as she searched her returning memory.

“There was no running, and I turned it down? Why... why did I turn it down...”

Then it hit her. She gripped Penguin's flipper harder as tears of joy filled her eyes. _She hadn't expected to get pregnant again, but it had happened, and very soon after they had got together. He was short and round with Penguin's features and had little flipper hands, he was a bright and happy little boy and suddenly her arms ached to hold him as she remembered his birth and raising him. Their son was five years old now..._

“The little boy with flippers... He's ours, he's our son Mikey!”

Penguin nodded excitedly.

“Where is he?” she asked, suddenly feeling anxious as she looked about the room and saw no sign of their son.

“He's downstairs watching TV,” Penguin replied, “I told him Mommy needed a long sleep. I didn't want to worry him.”

Something else came to mind. It was something wonderful.

“The other Gotham City is part of our world now...Ruby comes from the other city, she's Mikey's best friend?”

Penguin nodded. As she thought about Ruby, she remembered a little girl with long, raven black hair and ice blue eyes.... eyes like her birth daddy?

“Ruby was born via a male fertility implant, she has two fathers?”

“Good friends of ours,” Penguin confirmed, “If you're feeling up to it, we could go and see them this afternoon. You'll be just fine, the memory loss will be gone soon. We've been waiting for this to happen for a long time. It's nothing to worry about, we've always known that.”

“I wish I could remember that too,” she replied.

The rest was a blank. Now all she wanted was told see her son and hold him in her arms. Just then she heard little footsteps in a hurry, waddling at speed up to the door.

“Daddy, is Mommy awake?” he called in his little gruff voice that made her heart overflow with love.

“Yes she is, come in, son!” Penguin replied.

The door opened. Mikey stood there, small and round wearing jeans and a t shirt and as he saw her, his face lit up with joy and his shoes thumped hard and quick on the floor as he ran at her, jumping on the bed, landing on his side, rolling and sitting up on her lap as his little flippers opened and closed and he smiled broadly.

“Mommy, you're awake!” he said joyfully, and he hugged her and as she held him, she remembered every detail of his life. Her clever, sweet little boy who looked just like his unusual father...

“Are we going to see Ruby now?” he asked, “I want to see my friend!”

“Soon,” Penguin promised, “As soon as Mommy is ready to get up.”

Debbie hugged her son again and smiled at her husband. The pieces were sliding back into place. She had a good life since retrieving the key. She was married to Penguin, they had a son together and her older kids adored him too. They had a nice house, money wasn't a problem and they had very close friends across the bridge... She still couldn't recall the rest, but she was feeling much better now and was more than ready to get up and get on with the day, because Mikey couldn't wait to see Ruby again.

“I'm ready to get up,” she told Penguin.

He smiled.

“I'll drive,” he reminded her, “I learned to drive a car three years ago, remember? I can drive ducks _and_ cars now!”

 

It was odd, seeing Penguin in the driving seat of their car, until she recalled he had been driving for three years and often took a turn at the wheel to give her a break. They took a lot of trips over the bridge to the other Gotham, to see their friends, and Mikey always came along to visit Ruby...

She was still thinking about it all the way over the bridge and through the city as Mikey excitedly chattered in the back of the car. They travelled through the city. They took a road that led up to the nicer part of town, then reached the open gates of the Van Dahl Mansion. As they drove in, she remembered this was a familiar route...They parked the car, she got out first, looking up at the house, then Penguin helped Mikey out of the back and he jumped from the car, his little shoes hitting the ground with a thump, then he was running towards the front door.

“Wait for us!” Penguin called out, as Mikey waddled excitedly up the steps, then he stood there, waiting for his parents to join him.

“I want Ruby!” he said as his eyes shone with excitement.

Debbie looked back at the sleek black car parked next to their own. _It had a bumper sticker. Stick people, two guys, one was pregnant, and beside them were more than a dozen stick figure children. She recalled that had been a gift to Jim from... Harvey?_ She smiled at the memory. It had all come flooding back:

Last Christmas, they had come over for dinner and Harvey had given the sticker to Jim, laughing as he slapped him on the back and said, _It's a reminder to give him a break, Jim. How many kids have you two got? The poor little guy's not stopped having kids since you got married! Is this your plan to keep the crime rate down, to keep Oswald knocked up all the time?”_

It had just fallen into place. Jim and Oswald had three kids. They had two boys who were aged nine and seven, and Ruby was five. And Oswald was pregnant again, their third son was due in less than six weeks time...Oswald had made it! She was so relieved to remember that, after seeing Jim with the eye patch and hearing about the wartime explosion. Now she remembered everything, and it had just dawned on her that Jim had also taken a trip back through the timeline, to blast that droid to pieces while she was on her mission. He would always be thankful for her help, because, as he had said many times, _If not for you, me and Oswald wouldn't be together now. We wouldn't be a family..._

The door opened. There was Jim, wearing his eyepatch. He smiled warmly, then gave Debbie a hug.

“Penguin told me you briefly lost your memory,” he said, “Has it all come back now?”

“Yes it has. I understand what you did for me, too. You revisited the timeline to kill the elite droid. Thank you, Jim.”

“I owed you,” Jim said fondly, “Me and Oswald fought a war side by side and won. We changed our future because of you. Neither of us will ever forget that.”

She remembered it all now. Jim and Oswald had joined forces to prevent the fall of Gotham. A year later they had married. They were Mr and Mr Cobblepot, too – Oswald had insisted Jim take his name, because he loved the idea of a Cobblepot running the police department...

Mikey reached up and tugged on Jim's sleeve.

“Where is Uncle Victor?” he asked.

“He took the boys to the park,” Jim replied, smiling down at Mikey, who touched his little flippers together as his expression became serious.

“But where is Ruby? I came to see my friend!”

“Ruby!” Jim called, “Mikey's here!”

There was a sound of light running as she dashed down the hallway, her long black hair flying behind her as the hem of her white lace dress bobbed about her knees, she came to a stop at the front door as Mikey threw his arms wide and his flippers opened and closed and his eyes shone with joy.

“Hello Ruby, hello friend!” he said joyfully as they hugged.

“Mikey, I've missed you!” she said.

“I've missed you too!” he told her.

“Do you want to see the play house in the garden?” she asked, “It's a little house me but you can play in it too.”

His eyes grew wide and his flippers twitched.

“A house for Ruby?”

Jim looked down at him fondly.

“Yes, a little house just for Ruby, you can go outside and play in it too - but don't run!”

“Okay!” said Ruby, and she grabbed Mikey by his flipper and she walked off and he waddled beside her as they headed for the garden.

 

Debbie and Penguin followed Jim inside and Jim closed the door, then turned back to them.

I'll take you through to the front room, Ozzie's upstairs having a lie down, I'll tell him you're here.”

They went through to the front room, sat down together and as they waited for Oswald to join them, Penguin turned to Debbie and smiled.

“Have you recalled everything now, Debbie?”

She thought about it.

“Yes, I have. I have all five years that just went by, back in place - nothing is missing.”

There was a playful look in his dark eyes.

“You recall everything?”

“Yes!”

“Let's see...” Penguin opened up his flipper and held it out to her.

“I'm feeling stiff. Could you pull my flipper?”

“It's stiff?” Debbie said in surprise.

“Yes, very.”

“You want me to pull it?”

“Yes, just give it a tug, Debbie. Pull my flipper.”

She gave a shrug and grasped his flipper, then she pulled it.

Penguin farted.

“ _Ha ha ha!”_ his eyes were sparkling with amusement, “You forget that joke!”

Debbie had now recalled too late this was a joke he had played on her once before. She playfully slapped his arm.

“ _Pull on my flipper?_ I can't believe I fell for that! Don't be so crude, we're at our friend's house!”

Penguin gave a gruff chuckle.

“Now there's nothing you've forgotten!” he told her.

Then Jim returned to the room with a protective arm around Oswald, who was looking his usual well dressed self apart from the fact that his jacket and tie were off and his waistcoat was absent. As Jim helped him to sit down, Oswald rested a hand beneath his heavy baby bump to support it, and Jim placed a cushion behind his back to be sure he was comfortable.

“It's so good to see you both again!” Oswald said warmly to Debbie and Penguin.

“I'll make some tea,” Jim told him, pausing to raise his damaged leg on to a padded footstool, then he turned to Oswald.

“Are you sure you're comfortable?”

Oswald smiled as he looked up at him.

“Yes thank you, Jim.”

As Jim left the room, Oswald settled back comfortably as he put a hand on his bump and felt a movement.

“He's kicking again!” he said with a chuckle, “It's not so bad when he kicks like that, but when he gets me in the ribs it can be painful, “ then he smiled, “Oh well, not much more of this now – five weeks to go and our fourth child is here!”

Debbie smiled too as she looked at Oswald, recalling all the conversations they had shared about his pregnancy. He had been pregnant with Ruby the same time she had been carrying Mikey, and the two of them were so close now. They had been for five years, and as she thought about how her memories had suddenly returned, she felt a wave of emotion wash over her. She had always known since that day Oswald and Jim had wiped out an army of droids that a bond had been made that day that would never be broken. Jim and Oswald were their closest friends, they often met up with the kids, too - this was how Ruby and Mikey had become best friends.

“Jim told me what happened,” Oswald said as he looked across the coffee table at Debbie, “Has everything fallen back into place?”

“Yes it has,” Debbie replied, “You and Jim fought side by side in the city war. You prevented the bridges from falling. You brought the law and the underworld into an agreement to keep the peace together. And Jim is now Commissioner Cobblepot while you run the underworld but leave most of the work to your trusted people, while you mostly stay home and raise the kids.”

Oswald's eyes shone with joy.

“I never knew life could be as good as this,” he told her, then the baby kicked again and he slid his hand across his belly, briefly looking down at his baby bump, “I never thought I could be this happy, but I have Jim to thank for that – and you, for telling us where we would have gone wrong in the future.”

“I'm glad the gamble paid off,” she agreed.

“So am I,” Penguin said, and he reached for Debbie's hand, holding it tightly in his flipper.  
Jim returned with the tea. They spent the whole afternoon with Oswald and Jim, while the kids played outside in the garden. When it was time to leave, as they bid a fond farewell to Jim and heavily pregnant Oswald, Mikey was hugging Ruby and telling her he wanted to come back tomorrow.

“Not tomorrow,” Penguin told him as he put him in the car, “Wait for the weekend, you can come back Saturday.”

As they drove away, Ruby stood at the front door with her parents, waving as Mikey waved back. By the time they were heading towards the bridge that would take them back to their own city, Mikey was asleep, leaning back against the seat and snoring softly with his flippers up at his sides.

 

As they crossed the bridge, Penguin spoke up.

“You know when I brought Mikey through to revisit the timeline, while you were on your mission to find the key?”

“What about it?” she asked.

He glanced at her. There was a playful gleam in his eyes.

“Do you know how I knew where and when to rejoin you, to be sure it was safe for Mikey?”

That gleam was still in his eyes. He gave a gruff laugh. The penny dropped...

 _“Oh no!”_ Debbie groaned.

Penguin gave a dirty chuckle.

“Yes, that's right, they have a _viewing_ device! That's how they were able to tell you the futures of all the Penguins... They let me use the device a couple of days before we travelled. I saw you with Oswald. You sucked him off!” he chuckled again, “And that big guy in Arkham, he certainly knew how to fill your void! I watched that twice, by the way,” he laughed again, “And then I had to stop because I would have needed to whip out a handkerchief, it could have got messy if you know what I mean - and I didn't know if the viewing room had cameras!”

Debbie's face flushed as she looked at Penguin, who gave her a wink. They were over the bridge now and heading for home.

“Why am I not surprised about this!” she exclaimed, “You must have told me this before and I forgot!”

“No, I never told you until today!” he said, “I was just waiting to see the look on your face! Oh, I did enjoy seeing those lustful moments!”

Debbie laughed as she looked at Penguin.

“Is there anything else I need to know?”

“Yes,” Penguin replied, “After we visited you, I took a trip further than I was supposed to – just for a small glimpse of the future.”

They were on the road that led to home now. As Debbie looked at him, she saw such warmth in his small dark eyes. He knew something...

“What did you see?” she asked him.

“Some day, many years from now, Ruby and Mikey will be more than friends. Jim and Oswald's grandchildren will have flippers.”

Debbie felt a warm glow spread through her heart. How wonderful! Ruby and Mikey with a family of their own... This meant some day, Jim and Oswald would be more than just their friends, eventually, they would become part of their family.

“That's the best news I could have wished for,” Debbie told him.

 

The sky was turning to sunset by the time they arrived home, and Penguin carried his sleeping son from the car, then they went inside and took him upstairs and soon sleepy little Mikey was ready for bed, and as he lay there on his back in his penguin patterned pyjamas, he gave a yawn and looked up at his parents.

“I had so much fun today,” he said, then he closed his eyes and slipped into a deep sleep as he flung his flippers up and they hit the pillows with a thump. He snored lightly, just like Penguin did when he was in a deep sleep. Debbie looked from their son to her husband and she smiled as her hand closed over his flipper.

“Maybe we should have an early night too,” she said softly as they left the room then quietly closed the door.

Outside, a car pulled up in the driveway and she glanced out the open window, her daughter was home. Her older sons would be along soon.

“Lacey,” she said, and her daughter looked up, “Tell the boys to be quiet when they get back – Mikey's asleep.”

Lacey looked up at her.

“Are you going out?”

“No, we just got back, we're having an early night,” she replied, then she turned from the window, took Penguin by the flipper and led him into the bedroom and closed the door.

 

Penguin had a hopeful look in his eyes – he always did when they were alone together, he always would, he had told her many times how she was the only one who had ever loved him, truly loved him – and _let_ him. He had never got over the joy and excitement of making love, not since the first time, even if he got too excited and it didn't last long. To Penguin, all they shared together would always be wonderful and exciting. Debbie opened up the doors to the balcony and as she went outside, he kissed her cheek then let go of her hand, hurrying back inside. She glanced back to see her short, round husband standing next to the bed, his flippers fumbling quickly to remove his clothing.

“Don't be long!” he urged her.

She had a smile on her face as she leaned on the balcony, looking out at the view of their spacious garden shaded in hues of sunset amber.

“I won't be a minute, I'm coming!” she called back.

“I will be too - if you hurry up back in here!” she heard him say in his eager, gruff voice, “Possibly up to _three_ whole minutes of paradise awaits you, my love!”

Debbie lingered for a moment, watching the sinking sun bathe the garden in its mellow shades as she thought about how different life had been five years before. That mission to find the key had changed her life – not only hers, but Jim and Oswald's too, and now their two cities were linked as one, as much as their lives and their futures were also entwined. She often thought back to the old days, and how life was before, and how tough that mission had been, but it had turned out better than she had ever expected, now she was happy, she had Penguin and another child to raise, and life was just about perfect. She couldn't wait to be in Penguin's arms... She turned quickly from the balcony.

“ _Fuck!”_ she said as an ache shot down her lower back.

“And indeed we will, when you join me in bed!” said Penguin warmly as she limped into the room as he lay on his side and beckoned to her with a flipper hand.

Debbie smiled as the love that reflected in her gaze matched his own and she limped over to the bed, paused to stretch her back, heard a click and then sat down cautiously and leaned in as Penguin put his arms around her. As they shared a deep and lasting kiss, she silently concluded that it wasn't fun, getting older. But as long as she had the one she loved in her arms, and a happy family, she wasn't complaining – at least there was no running involved. Even if her back ached and her joints got stiff and she wasn't the slim, youthful woman she used to be, none of that mattered, because they were happy, and always would be - and that had to be as close to a happy ending as anyone could ever hope to get, it was enough, it was perfect for them.

 

End

 


End file.
